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March 11, 1969. FREUD'S TWO THEORIES OF SEXUALITY. George S. Klein, Ph.D.
Klein states that there are two psychoanalytic concepts of sexuality: the clinical theory and the drive discharge theory. In identifying a common property of sensuality in children and adults, not synonymous with genitality and procreation, Freud used the term 'sexuality' as the experience and pleasure in infants and genital behavior in puberty. In Klein's opinion the word 'sexual' obscures the primary, enveloping experience of pleasure that manifests itself from early infancy on; 'sensuality' is a better word for the crucial pleasure component of sex. Normally the two aspects of sexuality, sensual pleasure and the modes of its evocation, converge into the genital pattern. Sensuality is 'plastic' because it can be aroused by various means: autoerotic, heterosexual, homoerotic. And the plasticity of sensuality creates a potential for conflict that distinguishes sexuality from other psychosomatic cravings.
The clinical theory of sensuality does not reduce motivations to a sexual history but rather locates sexual and nonsexual processes, and their motivations, in the social existence of the developing self. Consequently every sensual experience has reverberations on self-conception and self-esteem, and conversely crises in these respects affect sensual activity. A justification for viewing sensual behavior in terms of drive discharge theory is the hold sexual cravings have on thinking and behavior. Klein examines these two theories of sensuality, and considers the discrepancies between the clinical and drive discharge concepts.