Why this book?
- To engage directly with one of the major turning points in the development of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory.
- To understand the concept of “repetition compulsion” and its place in Freud’s thought.
- To follow the path that leads Freud from the pleasure principle to the theory of the death drive.
- To explore the relations among repetition, aggression, life, and death in Freud’s later theory.
About the book
Beyond the Pleasure Principle is a work Sigmund Freud published in 1920, in which he undertook a major revision of his theory of drives. His central question is whether all psychic processes can be explained solely by the tendency to seek pleasure and avoid unpleasure.
One of the phenomena that leads Freud beyond his earlier framework is “repetition compulsion”: the tendency of human beings at times to repeat experiences and patterns that are not necessarily pleasurable. His examination of this phenomenon opens the way to a broader account of the forces shaping the human psyche.
Freud subsequently develops the idea of the death drive and examines its relation to the life drives. From this perspective, the book marks a major transition in Freud’s thought and provides an entry point into the more difficult and controversial dimensions of psychoanalytic theory.
The work is particularly useful for readers who wish to approach concepts such as the pleasure principle, repetition compulsion, and the death drive not through popular or second-hand accounts, but within the development of Freud’s own thought.