Life and Death in Psychoanalysis

JeanLaplonche
Published Franceby Flammarionas in Vie et morl en psychanalyse

TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

JeffreyMehlman

THE JOHNS HOPK]NS UNIVERSIry PRES.' fultimoreand London

Contents
This bookhasbeenbroughtto pubricarion with the generous assistance theAndreww. of MellonFoundation.

I Transl ator's nt r oduct t on

Originallypublished l9?0 as Vieet mort en psychanalyse. in Copyright@1970, Flammarion o Copyrighr 1976. press The JohnsHopkinsUniversity All rightsreserved. Published 1976 Printedin the UnitedStares Americaon acid_free of paper Johns HopkinsPaperbacks edirion,l9g5 0 60 5 0 40 3 02 0l 0 09998 97 87 65 4 press The JohnsHopkinsUniversity 2715NorrhCharles Street Baltimore, Maryland2l2lB-4319 The JohnsHopkinsPress Ltd., London

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l ntroducti o n l of The Order of Life and the Genesis Human Sexuality

I 8 25 48 66 85 103 t25 127 140 148

2. Sexuality and the Vital Order in PsychicalConflict 3. The E go and t he Vit al O r der 4. The E go and Nar cissism and 5. A ggress iveness Sadom asochism 6. W hy the Deat h Dr ive? C oncl usi on Ent A ppendi x:The Der ivat ionof Psychoanalyt ic it ies

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Dara Laplanche, Jean. Life anddearhin psychoanalysis. Translation ofVie et mort en psychanalyse. l. Freud, Sigmund' 185G1939. 2. psychoanalysis. conflict(psychorogy)I. Title. 3. [DNLM: I. Psychoanalytic theory. WM460 L3l4vj BF]3 .F8 5L 27 t3 r 50. . 19' 52 7s - 36928 ISBN 0-80I 8- I 637-8(hardcover) ISBN 0-80I 8-2730-2 (paperback)

N otes l ndex of Fr eudianTer m s

A catalog recordfor rhisbook is available from the BririshLibrary.

The Order of Lde a theory if it is indeedtrue that, after 1920,Freud proposesand supports and links sexualitywith one of them-with englobingtwo typesof drives' thatbi ol ogi cal, evencosm ologicalf or cehet hencallsEr os- it isat t hat poi ntthat-our t hesiswillseem m ost openlyincont r adict ionwit hFr eud's juncture as well that a seriesof it,ougtt, but it is precisely at that in Freud's own work' difficultieswill also surface sexuality as it ln our first development,we will confine ourselvesto In lhe Three Essays' any effort to grasp what is' constitutesthe object of a glanceat its in fact, at stakein that text, nothing is more instructivthan parts: sexualaberraorganization:an apparentlysimple scheme,in three the transformationsof puberty' And yet were tiJns, infantile sexuality, greatest complication a one to reconstitute deiailedtable of contents,the is, of course,in part due to interpolations would result. That complexity one might term dating from different kinds of arrangement: a level the genesisof psychoanalyticdiscovery itself), a heuriitic (following a polemical level (destroying the accepted conception of sexuality)' within the human being)' We shall (retracing iis ernergence geneticlevel be articulated, i,,.,np, to delineatet,ow theseihree different levelsmay movement of Freud's thought' the heuristic level' how specificallythe of the of follows-as in every profound exercise thought-the movement "thing itself': a truth it was Hegel'sto have renderedexplicit' (Trieb\' and Th"eguiding thread in our stidy will be the notion of drive in generalthat the pair it forirs with a secondterm: ins/incl. If it is true language to terminology, and above all its transposition from one translationhave another,can guide-but also misguide-us, problemsof from having introduced in the present case a confusion which is far remarks not be disappeared.Whence our concern that the following attri butedsim plyt ot hem et iculousnessof at r anslat or . Tr iebhasf r eby psychoaquently beentranslatedin French as irulincl, and transposed in Freud' and in nutyrt, in English, as well, as instinct'Yet we encounter the German languagein general,not one but two terms' two"signifiers"' it may be said to usea more recenttermlnology' Two signifiersthen' and m eaning'just as that i n common usaget hey have m or e or lesst he sam e "to push"; their etymologies are paiallel: Irieb comes from treiben' which also means"to Instinkr finds its origin in Latin, from instinguere, languagesand incite," "to push." But-as is frequently the case with of this type' an especiallywith German-when faced with a doublet the seriousauthor approachinglatent inflectionsof vocabulary with all duplicity.in order nessthey d.r.ru. will attempt to exploit such objective barely to introduce a slight differenceof meaning, which is occasionally to the point of constitutinga but will at times be accentuated perceptible, veri tabl eopposit ion. suchist hecasewit hTr ieb( . . dr ive'') andlnst inkt (..instinct"):two terms which are employed by Freud even if, unfortu-

I
The Order of Life arld the Gerusis

of HumanSexunlity
Our point of referencein discussing sexuality in psychoanalysis will be Freud's fundamental and resolutely innovative text Three Essays the on Theory of Sexuality. The importance the author attributed to that work is manifestin the frequencywith which he modified it: in reeditions 1910, of 1915,1920,and 1924-25, revisedon each occasionin the very detail of its sentences terminology,with additions which simultaneously and preserve the original organizationof the work and open it up to later discoveries. There are, in addition, copious notes, particularly for the final, 1924 version,which is contemporaneous with the "last theory of drives." It is in these strata and repetitions that the evolution and enrichment of the theory of sexualitymay be best situated.But sincewe havejust alludedto a last turning point, the final version-in the sensein which a "version" constitutesas well a way of reversing work, a turning point-that final a version,begun in 1920,is inscribedonly minimally in the text itself, with the exceptionof the footnotes.So that if one wantedan approximateidea of what the Three Essays might have been had they beenfirst undertaken in 1920,one would do best to consult a text like the Outline of Psychoanalysis(1938),and specificallyits third chapter.And yet even in so late a text as the Outline, one senses the immensedifficulty experienced by Freud in proposinga synthesis, though hisfinal contribution--{oncernas ing Eros and the death drive---could but barely be integratedinto the first notion of sexuality. For the Three Essays not presentan abstract theory of drives in do general,but describeinsteadthat drive par excellence: sexual drive. the So much so, in fact, that without pretendingto remain faithful (through some falsely eclecticsynthesis) the entirely of what Freud may have to said concerningdrives, we may claim, nevertheless, follow the domito nant line of his thought in offering a thesiswhich will recur throughout our argument: it ts sexuality which representsthe model of every drive and probably constituresthe only drive in the strict senseof the term. And

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Life and Death in Psychoanalysis

The Order o"f Ltfe

ll

nately, it has been insufficientlynoted that the term Instinkt is used to somethingentirelydifferentfrom what is described designate elsewhere as sexuality. Instinkt, in Freud's language, is a preformcd behavioral pattern, whose arrangement is determined hereditarily and which is r epeat ed c o rd i n gto mo d a l i ti e sre l a ti v e l yadaptedto a certai ntype of ac objec t .M or e i m p o rta n t th a n e ty m o l o g yth e n, more i mportant eventhan t heir s em ant i c re s o n a n c e s n G e rma n c u lture, w e di scover a certai n i relation betweenmeanings assumedby the two terms in Freud'sscientific discovery,a complex relation, comprising an analogy, a dffirence, and also a derivation from one to the other. This is a derivation which is not s im ply c onc e p tu a l ,b u t w h i c h w e ma y , wi th Freud, rel are to a real der iv at ion: he d e ri v a ti o ni n m a n o f d ri v e sfrom i nsti ncts.r t First their analogy:it is basedon a common substrate the analysisof in the concept.The analysisof a drive, as it is presented us in its elements. to is also valid, in its generality, an instinct.That analysis sketched for is out, through successive approximations,in the courseof different editionsof the Three Essays, in order to find a more systematic but presentation, one had best consult a later text, "lnstincts and rheir vicissitudes."2 There, the drive is decomposed accordingto four dimensions as Freud puts it, or, accordingto the four "terms which are usedin reference the conceptof to a drive": "impetus" (Drang), "aim" (Ziet), "object" (Objekt), and "source"(Quelle). The impetus, he first tell us, is the motor factor in the drive, ..the amount of force or the measure of the demand for work which it represents. The characterof exercising pressure common to all driveslit is is in fact their very essence." Theselinesare exemplaryin their reference t o m ec hanic s n d , mo re p re c i s e l yto d y n a m i cs, hi ch w i l l al w aysremai n a , w central for Freud. What is calledthe economic point of view in psychoanalysisis quite preciselythat of a "demand for work": if there is work, a modification in the organism,it is because ultimatelythere is an exigency, a force; and, as in the physicalsciences, force can be definedonly through t he m eas ur eo f a q u a n ti ty o f w o rk . T o d e fine a dri ve by i ts i mpetus,a Trieb by its Drang, is, from an epistemological point of view, almost a tautology: the latter is but the hypostasized, abstract element of the f or m er . S o t h a t, to a n ti c i p a tew h a t w i l l fo l l ow . w e w oul d proposethe f ollowing hy p o th e s i s :i t i s th a t a b s tra c t e l ement al one, the economi c factor, which will remain constant in the derivation that will brine us from instinctsto drives. The aim now. It is, Freud tells us inthe Three Essays,..theact to which the drive is driven." Thus, in the case of a preformed instinct, it is the motory scheme,the seriesof acts which resultsin a certain accomplishment. what preciselyis that accomplishment? we refer this time to the If text "lnstincts and rheir Vicissitudes," seethat this accomolishment we is

ahvaysthe same and ultimately rather monotonous;the only "final" aim of definedin the most generalway: the appeasing a is alwayssatisfaction. we certain tensioncausedpreciselyby the Drang, that pressure havebeen speaki ngabout . The quest ion t hen ar ises o[ det er m iningt he r elat ion betw een an aim which is ent ir ely gener al and ( as wit h "im pet us") abstract-the appeasingof t ension- and, on t he ot her hand, t he ver y spcci fi cand det er m inedact s which ar e t he aim s of var ious inst inct s: m ( eati ng,seei ng sinceone f inds in Fr eud a "dr ive t o see") , aking love,et c' aim : why is it t hat The probl em is t hat of t he specif icat ionof t he thelinal represents somethingquite specificand not simply appeasement aim? If we pursue the analysis,drawing on different texts of Freud, we callsint o play t he f ollowing di scovertha t t he aim of t he dr ive const ant ly two factors:at times the object, at others, the source.The object'.to the s extent that Fr eud and. af t er him , vir t ually all psychoanalystgr adually a which represents kind came to focus on the notion of "object relations," a t ype of act ivit y, t he on point of view bet ween, t he one hand, of syntheti c mod e of a par t iculardr ive act ion,and on t he ot her . it s pr ivileged speci fi c obj ect.Thus or alit y, t o t ake t he f ir st exam pleof a dr ive, im pliesbot h a and a cer t aint ype of object , certai nmode of r elat ion.say incor por at ion, We encount er or incor por at ed. one w hi ch i s capableof being swallowed by t he not ion of aim , it s specif icat ion elabor at ionof herea fi rst p ossible ( we will soon seet hat t he t heor yis in f act i ts source;an d her e,appar ent ly t more complex)a f ar m or e biologist icand vit alist icor ient at ionseem s o prevai l . We shallexamine,then, in greaterdetail thesetwo concepts object and source.Object of the drive? ln order to eliminaterapidly certain misconan ceptions,we shall recall first that such an object is not necessarily to the Freudian Obiekt is not opposedin essence inanimateone. a thing: "objectification"of the love relation is intended.If in being.No subjective century, the term was the classicallanguageof the French seventeenth the focus of passion-/amme,ressentiment-it alreadyuse{ to designate that our "object" should be understood.And is in that rather broad sense yer our caution againsta vulgarizedconceptofthe love object("You treat me l i ke an o bject , "as t he phr asegoes)should not be t aken as absolut e. this simply by following the movementof its "definition" in One perceives the Three fssays. Temporarily, in the introduction, the "sexual object" is But t he defi nedas "t he per sonf r om whom sexualat t r act ionpr oceeds. "l of r of anal ysi s sexualaber r at ions esult sin an inver sion t his point of view:
It has been brought to our noti c e that w e hav e been i n the habi t of regardi ng the connecti on b el .w eenthe s ex ual dri v e and the s ex ual obj ec t as more i nti mate than i t i n fact i s. E xp eri enc e of the c as es that are c ons i dered abnormal has s how n us that

The Order o.f Lfe

12 Life and Death in Psychoanalysis together-a soldered object merely are andthesexual instinct in themrhesexual in of in dangerof overlooking consequence the i"",'*if"n we have been to the normalpicture,wherethe objectappears form part and uniio.',.i,yof in the oarcelof-the drive. we are thus warnedto loosen bond that exists our probable thesexual that driveis in the It driveandobject. seems between ihoughts of independent its object;nor is its origin likely to be due to its first instance attractions.a object's Thus, despite our reservations, the term object appears initially to somethingwhich functions as a means:"the thing in regardto designate which or through which the drive is able to achieveits aim."s There is a priority of satisfaction and of the satisfyingaction in relation to that "in regard to which" that action finds its conclusion. This brings us to a familiar problem in psychoanalyticthought, which might be termed summarily the "contingency"of the object.Insofar as the objectis that "in which" the aim finds its realization,the specificityor individuality of the certain objectis, after all, of minimal concern;it is enoughfor it to possess trcils which trigger the satisfyingaction; in itself, it remains relatively indifferentand contingent. is An additional dimensionof the objectin psychoanalysis that it is not necessarilyan object in the sense of the theory of knowledge: an which clearlytwo meanings "objective" object. We might here distinguish theory, are too often in a stateof unfortunately,in recentpsychoanalytic the coalescence: notion of objectivity in the senseof knowledgeand the notion of objectalityin which the object,this time, is an objectof the drive and not a scientific or perceptualobject. I point this out in order to emphasizethat the object of the drive can be, without prejudice, a such. fantasmaticobject and that it is perhapsessentially Finally, to concludethis seriesof clarifications,we should insist that a the object is not necessarily "total" person; it may be a partiol (or component) object, in the phrase introduced by Melanie Klein but found-and quite early-at the centerof Freud'sthought. Partial objects relatedto bodily life include breast,penis,and numerousother elements (excrement,child, etc.), all of which have in common the fundamental characteristicof being, in fact or in fantasy, detachedor detachable. In concluding this analysisof the notion of drive, we will focus our attention at greater length on the term source. If, in the Three Essays,the definition of a source-as we shall soon see-is relativelycomplex and ambiguous, in the text "Instincts and Their Vicissitudes,"to which referencehas been made collaterally, it is univocal: the Quelle is an a knowablesomaticprocess, kind of biological unknown but theoretically x, whose psychicaltranslationwould in fact be the drive. By the "source in of a drive" is meant "that somatic process an organ or part of the body in from which there resultsa stimulusrepresented mental life by a drive."6 We note here the lerm represented, fundamentalarticulationof Freud's a

t3

do not allow us to which the limits of this presentation metapsychology, that the most frequent model used by elaborate: suffice it to observe betweenthe somatic and the psychical Freud to account to. it't relation of "delegation"providedwith a mandate employsthe metaphor of a kind local biological stimulus thu' imperativethat need not be aUsotutety " life in psychical as a'drive' We do finds its delegation,itt;ttitt"ntation" is of a strictly chemical in process question not know whether the somatic other (e'g'' it correspondsas well to a releaseof nature, or whether Freud concludes' sourcesof drives' mechanical)forces: the study of the eventually oi p'ytttotogy"' and the problem might "lies outsidett. ,cope problem of our own the central U.loiu.O by biology't Thus we encounter of.life' to the science study: the relation questionof the source'which seems We shall return in a moment to the articulation betweeninstinct and particularly int...rting u' ti't point oi that articulation' we shall insist drive. In the interrm,"beforeeiamining fi rstontheanalogywhichexist s, concer ningour f our . . elem ent s''' shall or rather, in other words' we between an instinct and a drive; of impetus' object' aim' and underscoretne generalityof the definitions and utto*t them to be appliedto both instincts source,a generalityJi"i ..Instincts and Their in wager implicit drives' Such is' I believe, the V i ci ssi tude s, , , uno, u"t 'aswellist het r apt hat t ext set sf or t heunpr epar ed reader:theessaywouldexam inedr ivesingener al'not sim plysexual dri vesbutallt hose. . gr oups''o|dr ives- includingconsequent lyt he. . egodri ves' ,or.. self - pr ese'r vat ivedr ives''- concer ningwhichweshallshor t ly to in fact properly applie.d them' To have to ask whether'tltnu-t drive is to proceedin an abstract necessarily deal with everyTrieb in generalis them' to subject To deal *iin Ari'es in generalis to biologize manner. themtoananalysiswhichisa/ sovalidf or so- calledinst inct ualpat t er nsof concepts one needbut invoke the validity of such behavior.As evidence, The animal psychology-.or.ethology' in recent analysesln tt e fietas of specificallyin Lorenz's psychologists' researchof contempo'u'y *i-uf is r ef er ence not r egular lym ade t o ut school , makes ext ensive t ' t ut n'ii "im pet us" t t o his; specif ically'he not ion of Freud,of concept s "t "f "g""t which is most often invoked by is employed, ,in.. ittt l'ia' aulicntoiel' adopted them' is expressly. Freud to account for the economicfactor' -by be *oul.t simultaneously. contingentand, The notion .r un oii."i-*iict no-tion of a is present in th-efrom a certain pnini of view' specific specificact' and capableofreleasing triggeringa constettaiion perceptual aspcci fi cm echanism Ut ""u"it includesaser iesof det er m inedt r ait s'As i sknow n,it isbyt heuseof per cept uallur es'whosedif f er ent char act er isti csarema det o""t V, - 't t "t t t t t uinof t heset r igger shavebeen. ethological pr ecisely aim is also present in defined. Finally, the notion of an pat t er n' a ser ies chain anal ysi si n t he f t ; ; ; i a f ixed behavior al 'of of tension:a cyclewhich may reactionsending rn a permanentdischarge

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Life and Death in Psychoanal),sis

The Order of Ltk

l5

triggering device is not srop at any particular stage if the succeeding mechani smt pr es ent o p ro v o k eth e c o rre s p o n d i n g Having insistedon the generalvalue of Freud'sdefinitions,a generality which includesboth a negativeaspect(sincethe definitions may appear abstract) but also a positive one (since these notions can be shown to as coincidewith those of a science concretelyempirical as ethology),we shall return to the Three Esso_vs, to their very first page,on which is and found a succinctdescriptionof the "popular" conceptionof sexuality. The Three Essaysbegin: The fact of the existence sexualneeds humanbeings of in and animalsis in ex pr es s ed b i o l o g y y th ea s s u m p ti oo fa " sexual ve," theanal ogy b n dri on ofthe instinct nutrition, of that is, of hunger. Everyday possesses counterlanguage no part to the word "hunger," but science makesuseof the word "libido" for that purpose. Popular opinionhasquitedefinite ideas aboutthenature characteristics and of thissexual drive.lt is generally understood be absent childhood, setin ar to in ro thetimeof puberty connection theprocess coming ma!urity in with of to andto be revealed the manifestations an irresistible in of attraction by exercised one sex upon the other;while its aim is presumed be sexual to union,or at all events actions leading that direction.t in This "popular" conceptionis, at the same time, a biologizingconcept ion in whi c h s e x u a l i ty , e s e x u a ld ri v e ,i s concei ved on the model of th of an instinct,a response a natural needwhoseparadigm is hunger (if we to may be allowed at this point to make more systematic use than Freud of t he c onc ep tu a lp a i r d ri v e -i n s ti n c t). th e case of sexual i ty,thi s need In would appear to be grounded in a processof maturation, a processof s t r ic t ly int e rn a l o ri g i n , i n w h i c h th e p h y s i ol ogi cal moment of puberty i s determinant;it rvould thus be a behavioralsequence narrowly,determined by its "source," with a fixed and quite precise"object," since sexuality would focus uniquely and in a manner predetermined atl eternity on for t he ot her s e x ;fi n a l l y ,i ts " a i m " w o u l d b e s i mi l arl yfi xed: " sexualuni on,or at all eventsactionsleadingin that direction." We should, then, insist on the fact that this "popular conception,"which Freud summarizes here rn or der t o exp o s ei t s u b s e q u e n tl y h i s a ttack, coi nci des i th an i mage to w which may seemscientific. the sense a science life, an imagewhich, in of of in the last anaiysis.is perhapsquite valid, ar leastin domains other than that of human sexuality.lf we return now to the organiz.ation the Three of we Essays, shall understandbetter how that organizationis modeled,in its movement,on the very objectof the work: the entire organizationmay be under s t o o da s a fu n c ti o n o f a c e rta i n " destructi on"(perhapsi n the sense Hegel's of Aufhebung) of this "popular"-but also biologizing-imageof sexuality.There are three chapters,as we recalledearlier.The first is " S ex ual Ab e rra ti o n s ,"a n d w e mi g h t subti tl ethat fi rst chapter" The

Insti nctLost . ''Thesecondchapt er isent it led. . Sexualit y'''andwe Finally,t he t hir d chapt er ' of .i uU oru,.' "The G enesis Hum an Sexualit y. " t in a sense' he inst inct of " The Trans f or m at ions Puber t y"; per hapst hen' level' Rather than a different regained?No doubt, but regained at "The I nst inct would pr oposept visionally a f or m ula suchas ,we regai necl Mi med' " c. ^ f - - - . . ^- r , , L- : - f r , , te order to sttuar t he We shall treat the first Esscyonty briefly' and in us chapter' It presents with a second,which is the principal iocus of this aberrations'At stake is polemical,almost apologeti" catalogue-ofsexual specific aim and specific obiecl an effort to destroy re"Jiued notions of a m a pr esent at ion' or eover ' lt through a descr ipt ionof per ver sions' . - is w hi chi sdist inguishedneit t 'e. byit sscient if icr igor nor byt heexhaust ive. There is no basisfor seekingin t'heThree Essa-vs nessof its explanatrons. theory of the psychoanalytic the alpha-and certainly not the omega-of is to show just how extended'almost The c.u* for Freud the perversions. dem olishes t heir exist ence is' t uni versal, he f ield of per ver sions and how f or hum an sexualit y'Sexualit y' any i dea o f a det er m inedaim or object in givesthe appea,rance' a one might say upon readingthis first chapter' r but t hat is only t he pr ecar iousesult nor so-cal l ed m al adult , of ai inst inct , of its developmentmay of a historical evolution which at every stage aberrations' in the strangest bifurcatedifferently,resulting which on a passage Our considerationof the iecond Essaywill center del i neate st heessenceof t hem at t er int hat it r edef inessexualit yasa of a section function of its infantile origins' I refer to the conclusion of lnf ant ile Sexualit y": enti tl ed" The M anif est at ions sucking t akenas a m odelof or al or [ Our st udyof t hum b- sucking sensual sexual i ty] hasalr eadygil'enust het hr eeessent ialchar act er ist icsof aninf ant ile itself to for props itself upon; lt sexualmanifestatron. its origin it attaches entsteht inAnlehnur t gar l] oneof r hevit alsom alicf unct ions: it hasasyet no by sexualaim is dominated an and sexualobject,and is thu{ autts'err'tric; its
erol ogeni c z one.e

W eshouldobser veSt r aight awavt hat t heset hr eechar act er ist icsar e and t hat t hey even of found i n m ost er ot ic m aniiest at ions childhood of t he ageof childhood'. m ar king t in transcen d lar gem easur e he sexualit v The def init ioninvokest hr ee defi ni ti velyt he ent ir et yof hum an sexualit y' of pr opping't he not ion of aut oori gi nala nd com plexnot ions:t he not ion erotism; finally, the notion of an erotogentczone' to the French reader will perhapsbe surprised Propping lEta-vagel, I appar at us. n cur r ent hear, i s a f undam enioi, . r , in Fr eud'sconcept ual transl ationsof Fr eud, inFr enchaswellasint heexcellent St andar d E di ti or, . inEnglish't heonlyt r aceof t heFr eudianconcept ist hespor adic andpoor lyjust if iedu. "of "nadject iveder ivedf r om t heG r eek: . . anaclit and an ef f or t ; i c-" A pr olongedconsider at ion f Fr eudiant er m inologyr 0

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Life and Death in Psychoanalysis

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t7

at retranslating Freud's work have led us to choose, along with the y, or iginal F r e n c htra n s l a to rw h o h a d a l re adyusedi t unsystemati cai l the If rcrm btayage@ropping) and its derivatives. we haveadoptedthat term, it to it is because was necessary bring into focus, as had not beendone before, the rigorous conceptual value which the German word,Anlehnung-meaning "to find support" or propping in somethingelse-takes on in Freud. We have attempted thereby to bring into relief with its v ar ious r es o n a n c e s n o ti o n Io n g o b s c u redby transl ati onsmore cona cernedwith elegance than rigor, specifically an excessively by learnedand ins uf f ic ien tl y x p l i c i t p s e u d o s c i e n ti fite r m: anacri si s. addi ti on, the e c In adjectiveanaclitic had in turn beeninflectedby an elaboratepsychoanaly t ic t r adit io n o ri g i n a ti n gi n a p o i n t w h i c h i s al ready,i n fact, secondary. For the term anaclitic was introduced by the translatorsin a text later t han t he T h re e Es s a y s , e e s s a y On N a rci ssi sm" th " (19t4),i n w hi ch Freud contrasts two types of "object choice," two ways in which the human subjectselects love object:a "narcissistic" his objectchoice,in which man chooses love object in his own image,and an "anaclitic" objectchoice his (Anlehnungstypus,in the German) in which (such at least is how the matter was a bit hastily interpreted)one'ssexualityis basedon the object of the function of self-preservation. Thus the term propping has been understoodin this tradition as a leaning on the object, and ultimately a leoningon the mother. It may thus be intuited how an elaboratetheory of a relation with the mother has come to inflect a notion intended to accountfor sexualityin its emergence. fact, if one examines In that notion more closely,one sees that originally it by no meansdesignates leaning a of the subjecton the object (of child on mother), even if such"leaning" is observableelsewhere. The phenomenonFreud describes a reaningo/ is the drive, the fact that emergent sexualityattaches itselfto and is propped upon anot he rp ro c e s s h i c h i s b o th s i mi l a rand profoundl ydi vergent: w the sexual drive is propped upon a nonsexual,vital function or, as Freud formulates it in terms which defy all additional commentary, upon a "bodily function essentialto life." It will thus be admitted that our divergencefrom Freud's thought is minimal, that we are in fact only renderingit more precise when we say that what is described propping as is a leaningoriginally of infantilesexualityon the instincts, by instinct is if m eant t hat w h i c h o ri e n ts th e " b o d i l y fu n cti on essenti al l i fe" ; i n the to particular case first analyzed by Freud, the instinct is hunger and the function feeding. without the terminologicalcoherence Freud's writof ings being absolutelysystematic, shall nevertheless we find, in a manner sufficientlymotivatedto allow us in turn to "lean" upon it, that the terms generally vital registerofselffunction, need, and instinct characterize the preservation oppositionto the sexualregister. in

With the propping of the drive on thefunction,we are faced not with deduction, but with a process a an abstract genesis, quasi-metaphysical with the utmost precisionin the archetypalexample of that is described orality. In orality, it is shown, two phases may be delineated: one consiiting in sucking of the breast,and a second,quite different from the phase first, which is characterizedas "sensual sucking." In the first -breast-sucking for nourishment-we are faced with a function or, to recall our earlier distinction, with a total instinctualpattern of behavior' one which is, in fact, so complete, as we have seen,that it is precisely to hunger, the feeding pattern, which the "popular conception" assumes model of every instinct. It is an instinctual pattern with its be the ..impetus,"and this time we should be able to specifyprecisely what may x behind the energetic term and, drawing on psychophysiology, be hidden to relate to a specifichumoral or tissual imbalancethat state of tension to correspondingsubjectively the impressionof hunger' We thus have an ..impetus,"an accumulationof tensions;a "source" as well, the digestive systlm, with-to localize and restrict things further-those points in which appetire is most specificallyfelt. A specific "object" is similarly Well, no, Shall we identify it as the breast? introducedinto the discussion. it is not the breastwhich procuressatisfactionbut the nourishment: since milk. Finally, there is a preformed process or "aim," that processof which observershave undertaken to describewith great breast-sucking precision: the search for the nipple, feeding, the release of tension' pacification. with the feedingfunction's Now the crucial point is that simultaneous achievementof satisfactionin nourishment, a sexual processbegins to appear. Parallel with feedingthere is a stimulation of lips and tongue by the nipple and the flow of warm milk. This stimulation is initially modeled on the function, so that betweenthe two, it is at first barely possibleto distinguish a difference.The object?It would appear to be furnishedat the level of the function. Can we be surewhetherit is still the by It The source? too is determined the feeding milk or alreadythe breast? process, sincelips are also part of the digestivesystem'The aim as well is quite closeto the aim of nourishment.ultimately object, aim, and source are intimately entwinedin an extremelysimple propositionallowing us to describethe process:"lt's coming in by the mouth." "lt" is the object; ..coming in" is the aim, and whether a sexual or an alimentary aim is in question,the processis in any event a "coming in"; "by the mouth": at the level of the source,we find the sameduplicity: the mouth is simultaneously a sexualorgan and an organ of the feedingfunction' Thus the ..propping" consistsinitially in that support which emergent of sexualityfinds in a function linked to the preservation life. we can find

18

Life and Death in Psychoanalysis

The Order of Life

19

no better conclusion than the following quotation of another passage Freud devotesto the oral-eroticactivity of the child: It is alsoeasy guess occasions whichthechildhadhisfirstexperiences to the on of the pleasure whichhe is now striving renew. wasthe child's to It first and most vital activity, sucking his mother's his at breast, at substitutes it, thar must or for havefamiliarized with thispleasure. child's him The lips,in our view,behave like an erotogenic zone,and no doubt stimulation the warm flow of milk is the by causeof the pleasurable sensation. The satisfaction the erotogenic of zone is associated, the l'irstinstance, thesatisfaction the need nourishmenr. in with of for To beginwith, sexualactivityatraches itselfto [props itself upon] fur,ctions serving purpose self-preservation does become the of and not independent them of until later.No onewho hasseen babysinking a backsatiated from thebreast and fallingasleep with flushed cheeks a blissful and smile escape reflecrion can the that thispicture persists a prototype theexpression sexual as of of satisfaction later in life. The needfor repeating sexual the satisfaction becomes now derached from theneed takingnourishment.rt for In the very act offeeding, the process ofpropping may be revealed a in culminating satisfactionthat already resembles orgasm;but above all, in an immediately subsequentphase, we witnessa separationof the two, since sexuality, at first entirety grounded in the function, is simultaneously entirely in the movement which disassociates from the vital il function. In fact, the prototype of oral sexuality is not in the sucking of the breast,and is not, in all its generality, activity ofsucking the Lsuccionf but rather what Freud, drawing on the works of Lindner, callsdas Ludeln oder Lutschen fsugotemenr].Henceforth, the object is abandoned,the aim and the source also take on autonomy in relation to the activity of feedingand the digestive system.with "sensual sucking"we thus come to the second"characteristic"referredto above, which is also a ..moment" intimately linked to the processof propping which precedesit: autoerotism. Auto-erotism.' Freud borrows the term from the sexologists his time, of notably Havelock Ellis, but he brings to it a new import: He definesit essentiallyin terms of the absence an object(objektldsigkeit):.,a sexual of activity . . . not directed towards other people." Now that definition prompts us to indicateimmediatelythat if the notion of auto-erotismwill fulfill an extremely important function in Freud's thought, it will simultaneously lead to a major aberration in psychoanalyticthinking and, perhaps,to a certain aberration in the thought of Freud himself,.on".rning the "object" and primal absence the object. In such a perspective of the object would be generatedas it were ex nihilo, by a strole oiron.. magic wand, from an initial state regardedas totally "objectless." The human individual must thus "open up" to his world-things as well as individuals-starting from what we are tempted to call a state of

than philosophical biologicalidealism,no doubt evenmore ir,conceivable so stateseems unpromisan object from an objectless solipslsm.Deriving task to certain analysts that they do not hesitateto ing a theoretical but which only aflirm-in a reaction which is laudable in its intentions different error-that sexualityper se has an object from the leads to a aut Such is t he posit ionof a psychoanalyt ic hor like Balint who begi nni ng. .r, vrith frequently attractive arguments,to demonstratethat a ,na..tut t hat in so " pri mary o bject love; 'in t he child exist s, r 2 successf ully, f act ' has been discussionconcerningthe object nencefoittrall psychoanalytic ofobjects for to the following alternative:either a total absence restricted from the beginningof a sexual object. the human being, or the presence The solut ion is w hat path shall we t ake t o avoid t his f alse im passe? t cor in occasions, passages r espondingo m om ent sof i ndi catedo n sever al parti cul arl ucidit y in Fr eud'st hought . I f we say "par t icularlucidit y, "it is or m out of a senset hat cer t ain discover ies ay be f or got t en, eclipsed' t he caseof Fr eud b represse,Jy t heir aut hor : t her e ar e clearexam plesin t hi msel f,and not ably concer ning he point under consider at ion' located further on' in the third The following is a crucial passage, of t but E ssay, which sum m ar izeshe t heses t he secondEssay: are satisfaction still linkedwith of At a time a,-whichthe first beginnings sexual thetaki ngo f nour ishm ent [ i. e'. int hepr oppingphase] . t hesexualinst inct hasa lt breast. of own bodyin theshape his mother's the outside infant's object sexual whenhe is ablet o f or m a just at t he t im e,per haps, it i s onl y l ai ert hat he loses , belongs. to total ideaof the person whomtheorganthatis givinghim satisfaction is auto-erotic drivethenbecomes fauto'erotism thusnot the As a rule the sexual throughis the has and inirialstage). not until the periodof latency beenpassed at why thusgoodreasons a childsucking his Thereare restored. originalrelation Thefindingof of relation love. of the hasbecome prototype every breast mother,s of is an object in facta re-finding it.rl The text cited has an entirely different ring to it from that vast fable of a autoerotismas a state of the primary and total absenceof an object: is, on the state which one leavesin order to find an object; autoerotism contrary, a secondstage,the stageof the loss of the object' A loss of the ..partial;'object,it should be noted, sinceit is a loss of the breastwhich is being considered, and Freud introduces at this point the prectous which t t observationhat per haps he par t ial object is lost at t he m om entin aboveall' the total object - t he m ot her as per son- beginst o em er ge'But if such a text is to be taken seriously,it meansthat on the one hand there the other hand sexuality does i.s from the beginning an object' but that on ,ror har,r.from rhe beginning,a real object. lt should be understoodthat the real o bject , m ilk, was t he object of t he f unct ion, which is vir t ually Such is the real objectwhich has preordainedto the u'orld of satisfaction.

20

Lift and Death in Psychoanalysis

The Order of Ltfe

2l

beenlost, but the objectlinked to the autoeroticturn, the breast-become a fantasmaticbreast-is, for its part, the object of the sexualdrive. Thus the sexual object is not identical to the object of the function, but is displacedin relation to it; they are in a relation of essential contiguity which leads us to slide almost indifferently from one to the other, from the milk to the breast as its symbol. "The finding of an object," Freud in concludes a formulation that has sincebecomefamous,"is in fact a refinding of it." We would elucidate this as follows: the object to be rediscovered not the lost object, but its substituteby displacement; is the lost object is the object of self-preservation, hunger,and the objectone of seeksto refind in sexuality is an object displacedin relation to that first object. From this, of course,arisesthe impossibility of ultimately ever rediscovering the object, since the object which has been lost is not the same as that which is to be rediscovered. Therein lies the key to the "duplicity" situatedat the very beginningof the sexualquest. essential The sexualaim is, similarly, in a quite specialposition in relationto the aim of the feedingfunction; it is simultaneously the sameand different. The aim of feeding was ingestion;in psychoanalysis, however,the term used is "incorporation." The terms may seemvirtually identical,and yet there is a slight divergence betweenthe two. With incorporation,the aim has become the scenario of a fantasy, a scenario borrowing from the function its registerand its language, but adding to ingestionthe various g im plic at ions ro u p e du n d e r th e te rm " c a n ni bal i sm," i th such meani ngs w as: preservingwithin oneself, destroying, assimilating.Incorporation, moreover, extends ingestion to an entire series of possible relations; ingestionis no longer limited to food, sinceone can conceiveof incorporation occurring in other bodily systemsthan the digestiveapparatus: reference thus made in psychoanalysis incorporation at the level of is to other bodily orifices, of the skin or even, for instance,of the eyes.To speakof a visual incorporationmay allow for the interpretationof certain symptoms. Thus from the aim of the function to the sexual aim, a transition exists which may still be defined in terms of a certain kind of dis plac em e n t:n e w h i c h , th i s ti m e , fo l l o w san anal ogi cal metaphori cal o or line, and no longer an associative chain through contiguity. Finally, before leaving the vicissitudesof the aim in the processof pr opping.we s h o u l d n o te . a l o n g s i d e e fa ntasmati c th scenari o acti vi ty or (incorporation, in the case of orality), a secondkind of aim, no doubt linked to the scenariobut much more localized,much less"dialectical": that of a "pleasuretaken on the spot," the sheer enjoyment of sensual sucking. Betweenthe fantasmaticaim o[ incorporationand the far more local and far lesssubtle aim of stimulating the lips, there is necessarily a complex relation that we shall have to reexamine.

There remains the problem of the source.We noted earlierthat this is perhapsthe central question if what we are presentlystudying is indeed the the oiigin, thus precisely sourceof sexuolity' lt should be emphasized not simply a word game,neitherfor us nor for Freud, sincewe that this is with a two encounter in the Three Essa-r,s meaningsof the word source. rel ati onbet weent he t wo we shoulddo well t o f ollow' I n an init ial st age, an source is taken in the most concreteand local senseof the term: as zone zone ( t o cont inuewit h t he exam pleof or alit y, t he labial erotogeni c of sti mul atedby t he passage m ilk) . I t is as t hough a biologicalschem e zones, sexualityfrom certain predetermined which would secrete existed nourishexactly as certain physiologicalsetupsgive rise to the need for in a ment ihrough certain local tensions;we thus find the idea of a source of the stricrly phyiiological sense.But we find as well a secondmeaning far more t.r., *hi.h is at least as interesting,although simultaneously privileged from the erotogeniczone, as a general.We pass progressively -plore Already for stimulation, to a far more extendedseriesof processes' but even more as Freud'sconsiderations ln the text of the Three Essays, point t expand thr ough br oaderclinicalexper ience,he capacit yt o be t he no means the of departure of sexual stimulation is revealedto be by describedas the /oci of privilege of those zones which are successively t hose I oral , anal , ur et hr al,or genit alsexualit y. ndeed,it is not exclusively but ever y cover ing' w el l -l ocalizedzones wit h t heir cut aneo- m ucous f or cutaneousr egion which is capableof ser vingas point o[ depar t ur e Fr eud will posit t hat sexualsti m ulat ion.ln a lat er st ageof his t hought , not the erotogenic( ar eas pr oduct ive of sexual st im ulat ion) includes int er nalones; r si mpl y ever y cut aneous egion,but ever y or gan, including of i n so doi n g, he dr ew on an int er pr et at ion t he sym pt om sof hypochonled st dri a.raThe n, gener alizing ill f ur t her , he is event ually t o t he posit ion that every function and, finally, every human activity can be erotogenic' We are diawing in this last observationon the chapterin the Three Essays dealingwith "indirect sources"of sexualityin order to note this time that far from being simply a biochemicalprocesslocalizablein an organ or in be as a collection of differentiatedcells, the "source" of sexuality can the body in its entirety: stimulation of as generala process the mechanical iake, for exampie,the rocking of an infant or the sexualstimulation that may result from rhyhmic jolts, as in the courseof a railroad trip; or the t exampl eof sexualst im ulat ionlinked t o m uscularact ivit y,specif icallyo Freud comes to assertthat sport;. Then, in a still vaster perspective, intense intellectual effort can itself be a point of departure for sexual conf ir m s' sti mul ation- a f act t hat t he m ost or dinar y clinicalobser vat ion as for such general processes affects, notably Such is also the case ..pai nful " af f ect s;t hus, a suddenly em er gentst at e of anxiet y will f r e-

22

Life and Death in Psychoanalysis

The Order of Life well as of t he second of chapter,w i t h t he sexualaber r at ions adult s,as t child. we shallconsider he ,vi th the not ion of a "polym or phousper ver se" within its very ler(n perver.sionand the kind of movement operative The notion is commonly definedas a deviotionfronr .on..p,. Perversion? im pliest he choice pat a pr i nsti nct,w hich esupposesspecif ic h and aim and ofadi verge nt pat h( inbiology, andcur r ent lyint he"hum ansciences"' casethat a is reference often made to "deviants"). This is so clearly the that its authors admit a glance at any psychiatric textbook reveal's concerningthe entiretyof the field of Iemarkablediversity of perversions, ..i nsti ncts" nd accor ding o t he num ber and classif icat ion t he inst inct s of t a aboveall' and per haps but they adopt: not only sexualper ver sions also, inst inct s,of t he nut r it ive of of perue.si on s t he m or al sense, t he social his instinct, etc. In lhe Three fssays, on the contrary' Freud founds Ar per ver sions. e we t hus noti on of per ver sionst r ict ly on t he sexual def is deviance necessar ily inedin r elat iont o a nor m ' t hat suggesti ng, ; ince p.eua i ,i m selfwould r ally t o t he not ion of a sexualinst inct ?M or eover , in a the defi ni t ion of a "sexual inst inct " ult im at elywould consistonly Such is not t he "popular concept ion. " and im pr ovedver sionof t he revi sed we case. for Freud's dialectic is more fundamental. The movement t which is sim ult aneouslyhe sketchedabove,a m ovem entof exposit ion t movementof a syst emof t hought and, in t he last analysis, he m ovem ent the perversion-ends up by of the thing itseli, is that the exception-;e', the taking the rule along wirh il. The exception,which should presuppose sexualfunction, with its wellpreexistent of existence a definite instinct,a t defi nedno r m s of accom plishm ent lhat except ionendsup by under m inwhole of i ng and de st r oyingt he ver y not ion of a biologicalnor m ' The endsup by becom ing wholeof inf ant ilesexualit y, sei ual i ty, or at leastt he perversi o n. "sexual What, then, is perverted,since we may no longer refer to a is st ill i nsti nct,"a t leastin t he caseof t he sm all child?what is per ver t ed sexuality. the instinct, but it is as a vital function that it is pervertedb-t' of at not ionsdiscussed t he beginning t his chapt er - inst inct Thus the t wo The dr ive pr oper ly and dri ve- once m or e ar e seent o m eetand separ at e. Now r f in speaki ng. t he only senseait hf ul t o Fr eud'sdiscover y,ssexualit y' which ,.xuutit"y,in its entirety, in the human infant' lies in a moventent and internalizesits deflectsrhe instinct,metaphorizesirs aim, displaces zone' obirr,, and concenlratesils sotrrceon v'ho! is ultimately a minimal which we have the erotogeniczone. concerning that erotogeniczone, to barely diicussed, we should indicate the interest we are inclined t ur ning point wit hin t he bodily attri buteto it . I t is a kind of br eakingor orifices:mouth, sincewhat is in questionis aboveall sphincteral envelope, since t he pr incipal biological exchange, .t.. lt is also a zone of ^nur. but t her e ar exchanges e bor ne by it ( t he pr im e exam pleis againf eeding,

quent lyt r ig g e ra s e x u a ls ti mu l a ti o n .W e shal l ,moreover, n a subsequent i discussion masochism,have occasionto return to the painful affect as of an " indir ec ts o u rc e "o f s e x u a l i ty . Freud'sconclusionon the subiectreads: Sexualexcitationarisesas a concomitant effect Iwe shall retain this term "marginaleffect,"for it defines process proppingin irs Nebenu'irkung, the of doublemovement leaning, thendetachment deviation] thecase a of and in or of greatnumberof internalprocesses stimulation, muscular.activity, [mechanical intellectual work, etc.]as soonas the intensity thoseprocesses passes of beyond quantitative certain limits.what we havecalledthe component drives fparrialtriebe,pulsionspartiellesfof sexualityare either deriveddirectly from these internal sources arecomposed elements or of both from those sources from and l5 theerotogenic zones. we thus seethe priority accordedby Freud, not to the sourcein its strictly physiological sense, to the sourcein its so-called but "indirect" sense, in as an "internal source" which ultimately is nothing but the transcriptionof the sexual repercussions anything occurring in the body beyond a of c er t ain qua n ti ta ti v eth re s h h o l d .T h e i n terestof thi s redefi ni ti onof the source lies in the fact that any function, any vital process, can ..secrete" sexuality;any agitation may participatein it. Sexualityin its entiretyis in the slight deviation,the clinamenfrom the function. lt is in the clinamen insofaras the latter resultsin an autoeroticinternalization. What, then, is ultimately the source of the drive? In the present perspective, may say that it is the instinct in its entirety.The entire we instinct with its own "source,""impetus," "aim." and "object," as we have definedthem; the instinct,kit and caboodlewith its four factors,is in turn the source of a processwhich mimics, displaces, and denaturesit: the drive. To that extent the erotogeniczone,the privilegedsomaticzone,is not quite a source in the same sense one might speak of the somatic as sourceof an instinct;it is, rather, definedas a point particularlyexposed to the concomitant, or marginal, effect-the Nebenwirkung-we have lus t ev ok ed . W e t hus c o n c l u d ea n a l l to o b ri e f i ti nerary. W e shal l put asi de a considerationof the third chapter of the Three Essays favor of other in topics, and characterize simply as the moment of the instinct regained; it regained.as in any rediscovery-we demonstratedas much above concerning the rediscovery of the object-as other than it was in the beginning,for the discovery is always a rediscoveryof something else. Clearly,this phaseis oedipal.We shall presently neglect this third stagein order to insist on what gives to the first two chapters their meaning, or ient at ion , n d u n i ty . C o n s i d e ro n c e mo re w hat they entai l :to that end a we shall usethe term perversion,sincethat indeedis the focus of the first

Life and Death in Psychoanalysis as are other exchanges well). This zoneofexchangeis also a zonefor care, namely the particular and attentivecare provided by the mother. These zones,then, attract the first erotogenic maneuversfrom the adult. An even more significant factor, if we introduce the subjectivity of the first "part ner"; t hesezonesrfocali ze poren I al n ras ies and above all m at er naI fo fantasies.so that we may say, in what is barely a metaphor,that they are the points through which is in,oduced into the chird that arien internar entity which is, properry speaking, rhe sexuar excitation. rt is this arien internalentity and its evorutionwithin the human beingwhich wiil be the object of our next studv.

Sexunlity and the Vilal Order

in Psychical Conflict
In begi nning t his second elabor at ion, which is also concer nedwit h sexual i ty,we shall f ir st pr oposea ser iesof obser vat ionselat ingt o our r previ ousl ect ur e,which wasno doubt t oo br ief t o t r acea Fr eudiangenesis of sexual i tyf r om t he vit al or der . Fir st of all, it should be not ed t hat our earlier effort was a necessarily imperfect approximation. We only developed a singleaspecrof the problem o[ sexuality. The very term genesis evokesthe not ion of an em er gence, possibilit y a linearunder st andt he of ing of what is later by what precedes But this perspective it. should be correctedby a r ever sal: t he one hand, t he pr oposed genesis pliesin on im fact that w h at com esf ir st - say, t he vit al or der - cont ains what m ight be called a fundamental imperfection in the human being: a dehiscence. W hat i s " pe r ver t ed"by sexualit yis indeedt he f unct ion, but a f unct ion w hi ch i s som ehowf eebleor pr em at ur e. Ther einliest he whole pr oblemof the " vi tal order " in m an and of t he possibilit y, r ar hert he im possibilit y, or of graspi ngit "beneat h"what has com e t o "cover " it over ( assum inghat t theseterms st ill have any ot her t han a st r ict lydidact icf unct ion) .O n t he other hand . t o t hat ver y ext ent , it is t he / aler which is per hapsm or e l mportant, and alone allows us t o under st and and t o int er pr etwhat we persi sti n calling t he pr ior . We ar e alluding her e t o a not ion which is equal l y prevalentin Fr eud's t hought , and which will pr esent lyf igur e betw eenthe lines of what we shall under t aket o explain: t he not ion of "deferredaction" (N acht rdglich ke it).1 Our secondpr elim inar yobser vat ion, ilar ly under t aken sim along wit h Freud, bea r son t he ext r aor dinar ybr oadeningof t he not ion of sexualit y occasi oned psychoanalysis, br oadening m uch in t he ext ension by a as of the concep t as in it s com pr ehension. n it s ext ension,since sexualit y I w oul d seemt o include not only t he sm all sect orof genit alact ivit y,not onl y perver sions neur oses, all of hum an act ivit y,as t he int r oducor but ti on of the conceptof sublim at ion,f or exam ple,dem onst r at es. t his At point we should recallthe termpansexualitltwhich was usedas a veritable 25