ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud argued that in the very beginning of life the mind is capable only of 'primary-process thought' which is driven by the quest for pleasure. According to him, reducing mental tension is a pleasurable experience, and he described actions pursuing this aim as governed by the 'pleasure principle'. The infantile mind abandons its restricted orientation towards pleasure, and adopts a new policy of occupation, which leads it to distribute energy to all perceptions and memories, even if they happen to be unpleasurable. As Freud pointed out, word-presentations institute a regulatory process in the mind which distinguishes human beings from animals. Their power overturns the quantitative foundations of Freud's energy model. Freud stressed the potentially destructive aspects of the blind quest for pleasure in 1920, when he concluded in Beyond the Pleasure Principle that 'the pleasure principle seems actually to serve the death drives'.
