ABSTRACT
Thus Freud could not help observing the phenomenon of exaggerated or insufficient self-regard and to seek an explanation for it, even if it did not fit neatly into his instinct theory. We learn from ErnestJones why the psychoanalysts of that time perceived Freud's innovation as a difficult theoretical problem: 'For if the ego itself was libidinally invested, then it looked as if we should have to reckon its most prominent feature, the self-preservative instinct, as a narcissistic part of the sexual instinct' (Jones, 1958, Vol. II: 339). In this case the conflict at the root of the neuroses would no longer be between ego instincts and the sexual instinct (libido), but rather between narcissistic libido and object libido. This would be a conflict between two different forms of the sexual instinct, which would mean that sexuality would be seen as the sole root of psychic conflict. Up to that time Freud and his followers had rightly defended themselves against the accusation that psychoanalysis brought everything back to sexuality; they pointed out that the focal point of the neuroses lay in the conflict between sexual and nonsexual impulses, tllat is, between libido and the ego instincts. But if the instinct of self-preservation now had to be understood as a narcissistic component of the sexual instinct, this would justify the claim that psychoanalysis could see notlling but sexuality in tlle human soul.
