ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Dual Instinct Theory and the Problem of Anxiety. The former can be understood only in relation to the development of Freud's theories in general. That is, originally Freud conceived of conflict between libidinal and "ego" drives. That concept led to Freud's notion of an inherited tendency toward castration anxiety. Freud's first theory was essentially a biological one: sexual drives in conflict with ego drives, as in the central argument of the Oedipus conflict. Freud concluded, therefore, that originally there must have been phases of not-yet-outwardly-directed libido and aggression: the hypothetical stages of primary narcissism and primary masochism. According to that concept, the organic world is a highly differentiated system within the more general inorganic world. Freud called that tendency of organic matter to return to the simpler inorganic state the "death instinct". The Pleasure-Reality Principle, as well as the death instinct, is instances of the repetition compulsion, tendencies toward return to a former, simpler state.
