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Psychic-energy, libido, and related concepts in Freud's drive-discharge theory are either impossible, useless, or mistaken. If they are defined in a mind-body interactionist framework,
they are impossible in the sense that they violate energy-conservation laws of physics. If they are defined in any abstract framework, they are useless in that explanations of behavior so based are trivially and incorrigibly circular. If they are defined instead as biological concepts, the implied notions of energy flow in neural networks are mistaken; nevertheless, the biological framework seems most reasonable and helpful to understanding what Freud was attempting with his energy-discharge theory. I have not attempted to examine Freud's clinical theory, as contrasted with his drive-discharge theory; I refer to the distinction drawn by Klein (1976).