libido

libido

Psychoanal psychic energy emanating from the id

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

libido

[lə′bē·dō]

(psychology)

Sexual desire.

The sum total of all instinctual forces; psychic energy or drive usually associated with the sexual instinct.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Libido

 

one of the basic concepts of psychoanalysis, developed by S. Freud.

According to Freud, the libido is a primarily unconscious drive of a sexual character. Unlike the urge for self-preservation, the libido may be repressed or undergo complex transformation. Freud believed that the libido is localized in different zones of the body during the process of individual development, determining the phases of psychosexual development and the respective changes in the objects of attraction (from autoeroticism to attraction to external objects). Upon encountering an external obstacle, the libido may return to past stages of development, acquiring the form of pathological regression. At the same time, it may turn away from the original goals and find expression in the processes of creativity (sublimation).

In a polemic with Freud, C. G. Jung reexamined the concept of libido. Jung denied the libido an exclusively sexual character, considering it psychic energy generally. Understood in this way, the libido appears in Jung’s theory as a metaphysical principle of the psyche and a basic psychic reality. In Jung’s idealistic treatment, this is an autonomous, closed system, functioning on the basis of the principle of compensation.

D. N. LIALIKOV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.