14. The Distinction between the Pleasure and Unpleasure Principles in Freud's Later Work

Freud's use of various models indicated, if only implicitly, a certain distinction between the pleasure and unpleasure principles. This distinction came closer to an explicit formulation in some of Freud's later works. All such formulations were somewhat obscured, however, by the fact that Freud expressed them within the framework of his dual-instinct theory, in terms of the antithesis between “Thanatos” (death instinct) and “Eros” (libido). This theory in turn made it necessary for Freud to seek new formulations for the regulatory principles.

At this point I shall quote only those paragraphs from Freud's later works which indicate a distinction between the pleasure and unpleasure principles, and leave for later the discussion of such concepts as “repetition compulsion” and “Nirvana” principle, which—at least in Freud's formulations —are inseparable from the death-instinct theory. Such a distinction was expressed in Freud's evaluation of the role of Eros. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle the indications of the distinction were of a general nature. In part they were contained in sentences or paragraphs added in later years. Eros was presented in Goethe's terms as the force which “presses