ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to locate aggressivity in relation to the Freudian concept of 'life instincts'. The difficulties of a psychoanalytic theory of aggressivity stem, in large part, from the hypotheses—not to mention encumbrances—of classical metapsychology. In current language, aggressivity is one of the 'dispositions' that are either habitual—a permanent 'character trait' or 'personality trait'—or transitory—a 'state', a 'motivation'; that is, a modification, which 'sets the organism in motion' until the motivation is reduced and the organism is thereby differently motivated. The fate of the repressed aggressivity is of two kinds: one part remains cathecting the objects in the form of aggressive fantasies, the other is shifted on to the subject due to a sadomasochistic splitting. The difficulty of putting love in relation to aggressivity comes from the traditional antithesis of love and hate. The raising of tension, the rupture of equilibrium, sets the organism in motion to turn its activity and its aggressivity outwards.
