General: Carl M. Herold. 'Critical Analysis of the Elements of Psychic Function.' Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 1941, Vol. X, No. 4, pp. 513–544 (part 1); 1942, Vol. XI, No. 1, pp. 59–82 (part 2); No. 2, pp. 187–210 (part 3).

Starting with an analysis of the rôle of the elementary functions of objective perception and subjective sensation, this study establishes the pleasure-pain principle as the supreme psychological principle on which all libidinal reactions are

based. Thus the concept of libido represents sensual stimulation in reference to experienced or anticipated (conditioned) pleasure or pain. Libido is motivation rather than energic drive. Rejecting the concept of drive as an energy with specific aims, its energic contents are relegated to the rôle of objects of inner perception, whereas its motivating contents are recognized as sensual pleasure or pain reactions to objective perceptions or images. Further expositions of these basic views lead to the following discussions: the rôle of motility; a new interpretation of aggression and anxiety; masochism; reality test and loss of reality; the difference between dream and psychosis in reference to the missing reality test; definition of instinct in contradistinction to the rejected drive concept; the importance of hereditary qualities of the organs for perception and representation for the development of reaction types; the relations of different sense organs to the pleasure principle; etc. Sensitivity is recognized as the essential characteristic of living substance. Dulling of sensitivity as a result of many metabolic processes which are partly irreversible leads to those facts which were erroneously interpreted by Freud as manifestations of a hypothetical death 'drive'.

Author's Abstract.