EROS AND THANATOS
INTRODUCTION
Any student of the psychotherapies would have heard of the terms:
Eros and thanatos
Libido and mortido
Life instinct and the death instinct
If they have not heard of them then they should have! Freud seized
on this concept and it became central in his overall theory of human nature.
In his book “The ego and the id” he discusses this theory of instincts at
length.
Freud[1962] in his discussion of the two classes of instincts states
that the first class is the sexual instincts or Eros. This is a "...self-
preservative instinct,..."(P30). On the other hand there is the death instinct
whose task it is to, "...lead organic life back into the inanimate state;..."(P30).
He is thus entering into the field of the philosophy of opposites.
Human nature, life and the universe is unerringly a collection of opposites.
The answer to the question, “Is it possible to have something that does not
have an opposite?” begs unending cognition.
Hyams(1998) notes this in her article on dissociation. She says that
the world is full of polarities - good/bad, inhaling/exhaling, high/low and so
on. In addition the is yin/yang, protons/electrons, left/right, black/white,
matter/anti-matter and so on endlessly. Does something exist that does not
have an opposite? I am yet to think of one. As soon as one defines ‘x’, then
‘not x’ is immediately defined as well. However that is for the philosophers
to conjugate over.
THEORY OF OPPOSITES
Freud’s theory of these two instincts certainly is a theory of
opposites. One problem with such theories is that they can become static.
One discusses what is a manifestation of Eros (the life instinct) and what is
a manifestation of Thanatos (the death instinct).
Eros = love, procreation, win/win situations, peace and cooperation, god.
Thanatos = hate, murder, game playing, war, devil.
This provides us with a static taxonomy of this theory. It is possible
to look at how they interact and Freud does this to a certain extent in ‘The