ABSTRACT
Enigma of the Nirvana
Principle
Antti Talvitie@gmail.com
Freud introduced the ‘Nirvana
principle’ (the term he borrowed from Barbara Low, a British analyst) in Beyond
the Pleasure Principle thus: “The dominating tendency of mental life … is
the effort to reduce, to keep constant or to remove internal tension due to
stimuli –a tendency which finds expression in the pleasure principle; and our
recognition of that fact is one of our strongest reasons for believing in the
existence of death instincts.”
Nirvana is colloquially thought of as the ultimate state of bliss, eternal happiness, not death. The incomprehensibility of this enigmatic duality consists in the pleasure principle being both the ‘watchman of our waking life’, and the ‘modus operandi of our mental life’, the life and death instincts. This enigma of the Nirvana principle is explored in this paper.
Hundred years
ago, in The Economic Problem of Masochism, Freud returns to his puzzlement about why many act against
self-interest and “ruin the prospects which open out to him in the real world.”
He admits to having ignored the incomprehensibility
of the
conflict between the pleasure principle and the demands of the instincts to
reach Nirvana. This conflict is the theoretical issue in this paper, which also
explores the consequences now observed as recreations to the past acted out in
the real world.
Review of several analysands’ life experiences, observed
in the context of a cultural community, motivate exploring the Nirvana
principle as the origin of (moral) masochism – the almost irreversible
self-destructive behavior of sadistic leaders, causing anxiety, depression, and
fears about life and the future.
As an engineer and a psychoanalyst,
I observed self-destructive behaviors in
individuals and cultural communities in several countries. In those places an apparent trauma had
occurred at early age and, transformed by the unconscious, was repeated as
compatible deferred actions (as Nachträglichkeit) in leaders’ destructive
behaviors. There also was contagious submissive behavior in relation to the
leaders for whom I had earlier coined a diagnosis of (persistent) asymptomatic
psychosis.
In
the paper, psychoanalysis is considered natural science, and the instincts are
described as a physical force with a quality of consciousness. This paper relates life-and-death instinct to the known physical
forces. The concept of gravity illustrates this. The psychoanalytic profession has
been reluctant to address these corollary hypotheses of Freud’s propositions
about the logic and origin of the instincts. The
paper has several endnotes to clarify and support its arguments.
Keywords: Freud, Instincts, Nirvana, Moral Masochism, Group psychology,
Narcissistic defence
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