A Future Note on the Primal Instinct Theory

The theory of primal instincts remain perhaps the most controversial of Freud's formulations. This area has been the occasion of many notable papers; the most recent of these is in Eissler's The Psychiatrist and the Dying Patient [1]. Bibring's resume of the Freudian instinct theory is also systematically inclusive [2]. But despite his perceptive analysis, Bibring failed to see the paradox, even contradiction, in the fact that though in his operational concepts Freud was dualistic, his theoretical bias rested on a physical-chemical monistic conception of man. That is, Freud's conception of the ultimate explanation of human behavior rested on a physical chemical basis. We feel that this distinction can be best apprehended by carefully differentiating Freud's formulations into those of a philosophical-speculative nature and those more properly termed hypothetical constructs of a theory of psychology.

The discussion can be further sharpened by enumerating some basic questions: Is the concept of primal instinct a philosophical or psychological construct? Is there a primal life and death instinct? If there is a primal death instinct is it antecedent to a life instinct, coeval with it, or a later phylogenetic acquision?

Bibring points out that the concept of a primal death instinct was a complete change in the meaning of instinct from that of a stimulatory relationship to the mental apparatus