ABSTRACT
The concept of the drive is coextensive with the discovery of psychoanalysis, but a certain confusion reigns concerning its different forms and expressions. Taking Freud’s writings as its starting point, this chapter retraces the genealogy of the drives. It includes, perfectly logically, Bion’s contributions on the role of adult psychic functioning in the integration of the last genealogical stage of the instinctual drives of the newborn infant and draws its consequences for the functioning of the psychoanalyst in his clinical work.
