the psychoanalytic concept of aggression

Int. J. Psycho-Anal. (1971) 52, 137

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC CONCEPT OF AGGRESSIONCHARLES BRENNER, NEW YORK

The concept of aggression as an instinctual driveraises problems which are of great interest, bothpractically and theoretically. In the presentpaper the following topics will be considered:the nature of the evidence for the existence andoperation of aggression as an instinctual drivein mental life; the source of the aggressive drive;aggression and the pleasure principle; aggressionand psychical conflict; the aims of aggression;the relationship between aggression and thematuration and development of ego functions;the theory of drive fusion.

EVIDENCE FOR THE AGGRESSIVE DRIVE

When the concept of libido as an instinctualdrive was first introduced, it was considered tobe a psychophysical phenomenon, i.e. in theborderland between mind and body. As Freudput it (1905, p. 168; 1915a, pp. 121-2), it repre-sents a demand on the functioning of the mindwhich is made by the body. In keeping withthis concept Freud maintained (1915a, p. 124)that, to be satisfactory, drive theory must reston other than purely psychoanalytical or, ingeneral, on purely psychological data. He feltthat such data alone cannot furnish an adequatebasis for a theory of drives. When the conceptof an aggressive drive was introduced (Freud,1920), it too was considered to be a borderlandor psychophysical phenomenon in the sense justindicated. This view has persisted: like libido,aggression is generally thought of as a demandmade by bodily processes on the functioning ofthe mind.It seems reasonable to assume that what

chiefly influenced Freud in the direction ofassuming the operation of aggression as aninnate, driving force in mental life was the in-creasing appreciation of the importance of un-conscious, self-destructive and self-punitivetrends in mental life, an appreciation whichderived from his psychoanalytical practice duringthe decade 1910-1920. The psychoanalyticaltreatment of patients suffering from bouts ofdepression, undertaken during that period byAbraham and himself, was probably of parti-

cular significance. It may be that the dreadful,unexpected carnage of the 1914-1918 war in-creased his sensitivity to the manifestations ofaggression in the working of the minds of indi-viduals. However, the evidence which convincedFreud that aggression deserves to be classed asan instinctual drive was probably chieflypsycho-analytical evidence.It is all the more interesting, therefore, to

observe that when Freud (1920) actually intro-duced the concept of aggression as an instinctualdrive, he remained true to his earlier convictionthat psychological data alone are insufficient forthe purpose. What he did was to adduce evidencein favour of the existence in all living matter of adrive to return to the inorganic state. The mani-festationofthisomnipresent death drivein mentallife,heargued, isthe instinctual driveofaggression.He thus attempted to base the concept of aggres-sion as an instinctual drive on a foundation ofbiological aswellas of psychoanalytical evidence.During the decades immediatelyfollowing 1920

there was extensive discussion in the psycho-analytical literature concerning the validity ofassuming a death drive in all living matter.Opinion is still somewhat divided on the matteramong psychoanalysts, but the view expressed .by Hartmann et al. (1949) is widely enoughaccepted to be considered a general one. Accor-ding to them, the validity of the concept of adeath drive is a matter for biologists to decide.Whether the concept is correct or not does not,in their opinion, affect the validity of the assump-tion that aggression is an instinctual drive inman's mental life.The general acceptance of this opinion raises

questions which have so far received little con-sideration (Brenner, 1970). The first such ques-tion is whether psychoanalytical evidence aloneis a valid basis for a theory of instinctual drives.As we have already noted, Freud believed it isnot. He resorted to the idea of a death drivebecause he felt compelled to base the psycho-analytical theory of aggression on more thanjust psychoanalytical evidence. Is such a stepnecessary? May it not be that psychoanalytical

Invited contribution to the 27th International Psycho-Analytical Congress, Vienna, 1971.

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138 CHARLES BRENNER

data by themselves are sufficient evidence for thetheory of aggression, without reference to sucha general biological speculation as that of adeath drive?From our present vantage point, some 75

years after the discovery of the psychoanalyticalmethod, it is difficult to see any convincing rea-son why we should not base a theory of instinc-tual drives on the data derived from the appli-cation of that method. An instinctual drive is atheoretical construct which serves the purposeof explaining the nature of basic motivation, ofthe prime impetus to mental activity. The mostsimple and direct way to proceed to the forma-tion of the concept of an instinctual drive wouldseem to be to examine psychoanalytical datefrom as wide a variety of patients as possible:and to look for some uniformity among them.When one does so, the data seem, to mostanalysts, to fall naturally into two groups,sexual wishes and aggressive ones. Why is thisnot sufficient to justify the assumption thataggression is an instinctual drive as well assexuality? Psychoanalytical evidence clearlypoints in the direction of the conclusion that thetwo are equally or, at least, comparably impor-tant in supplying to mental activity the impetuswhich is the basic characteristic of what we callan instinctual drive (Freud, 1915a, p. 122).In 1905 only Freud himself had had extensive

experience with the psychoanalytical method.Even in 1915 there was only a handful ofanalysts with much experience. Moreover, themethod itself was less developed than it hassince become, so that it is fair to presume that itsresults were less reliable and less precise thanthey are now. By now, in contrast with the situ-ation at the beginning of this century, there arehundreds of psychoanalysts, each of whom hashad more than two decades of experience withthe psychoanalytical method on a total ofthousands of patients. It was reasonable in1915 to be modest, even sceptical, about theimportance and the reliability of purely psycho-analytical evidence, especially when used asa basis for drawing conclusions about the natureof the very wellsprings of human motivation.The same scepticismis not necessary today. Weshould, of course, welcome evidence from otherbranches of biology which confirm our theoryof the instinctual drives, whether it be fromhuman physiology, from comparative psycho-logy, or from any other discipline. By the sametoken we must not ignore established facts andtheories from other branches of scientific know-

ledge which would contradict our theories(Brenner, 1969). However, we need not deferthe development of our own theories, even thoseconcerning the instinctual drives, until we haveevidence concerning them from other, relateddisciplines.

SOURCE OF THE AGGRESSIVE DRIVE

In psychoanalytical theory the instinctualdrives are assumed to derive from somaticsources. They are thought of as measures of thedemand of bodily processes on the functioningof the mind. In the case of aggression, as mattersstand at present, we have no evidence that thisideads correct. It is possible that evidence willbeeome available in the future to link aggressionas an instinctual drive to particular physiologicaland endocrine phenomena. As yet, however,we have no knowledge of such links. As wehave noted, the evidence on which we base theconcept of aggression as an instinctual drive ispurely psychological. Until other, non-psycho-logical evidence may become available, to speakof aggression as a demand of the body on themind is to do no more than to express belief inthe prediction that in time such evidence willbe found. It is not a statement that can be sup-ported by evidencewhich is available at present.Put in other words, we are not now in a

position to specify any source for aggressionwhich is comparable to the erotogenic zones andto those sexual hormones which act directlyon certain brain cells as sources of the sexualdrive. We have no doubt that genetically deter-mined aspects of the form and functionalcharacteristics of the brain are reflected in thepsychological phenomena which we attribute tothe operation of the aggressive drive. We arenot at present, however, acquainted with anyother source of aggressionas a drive than this one,i.e. than the form and function of the brain(Brenner, 1955, p. 32; 1970).

AGGRESSION AND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLEFreud's (1920) original view was that aggres-

sion is beyond the pleasure principle, whencethe name of the monograph. According to thisformulation, the discharge of aggression, unlikethe discharge of libido, is unaccompanied bypleasure in and of itself. Only when it is fusedwith libido, i.e. erotized, and directed towardrepresentations of external objects is aggressionconsidered to give rise to pleasure when dis-charged (Freud, 1920, p. 63; 1923, p. 233;1930, p. 478).


THE PSYCHOANALYTIC CONCEPT OF AGGRESSION 139

More recent authors have expressed a dif-ferent opinion concerning aggression and thepleasure principle, an opinion which was firstclearly stated by Hartmann et al. (1949). Theysuggested that aggression bears the same relationto pleasure and to unpleasure as does libido:discharge of aggression, generally speaking, givesrise to pleasure, accumulation and lack of dis-charge, generally speaking, give rise to unplea-'sure. As far as one can judge from the literature,.this formulation has been generally accepted.Little notice, however, seems to have been givento the fact that this is a change which has boththeoretical and practical consequences (Brenner,1970).The most important of the former has to do

with the idea that a compulsion to repeat is acharacteristic of the instinctual drives. Thisidea is associated with the concept that aggres-sion is beyond the pleasure prinCiple,J:l.Qeri-Viitive, of'a universaraeatlCdriVe(F'reUd, 1920).

concept of aggression makes itunnecessary to ascribe the repetitive nature ofchildhood instinctual wishes to a special charac-teristic of the drives themselves, namely to arepetition compulsion (Kubie, 1939). We havean adequate explanation without the need ofassuming such a special quality of the drives,since we assume that, in the absence of gratifi-cation, wishes of instinctual origin persistentlyseek gratification. Childhood wishes whichremain ungratified as the result of anxiety andconflict about them, remain active and continu-ally drive an individual in the direction ofgratification, a direction which may lead to anyof the familiar consequences that such psychicalconflicts have, such as self-punishment orsymptom formation.

AGGRESSION AND PSYCHICAL CONFLICT

The practical consequences of relating thedischarge of aggression to the pleasure principleconcern the role of the aggressive drive in psy-chical conflict and symptom formation. Forsome time it was the prevalent view that thesexual and aggressive drives play different rolesin these phenomena. The former was believedto account for neurotic symptom formation, thelatter for self-punitive and self-destructivetrends (Freud, 1930, p. 139). This formulationserved the useful purpose of emphasizing thegreat role which aggression plays in superegofunctioning. The bulk of what we can identifyas self-directed aggression in mental life seemsto be related to the superego. However, most

analysts are agreed that derivatives of aggressionplaya role in psychical conflict which is at leastcomparable to that played by derivatives of thelibidinal drive. Some, indeed, have gone so faras to consider aggression to be the prime sourceof anxiety (Klein, 1948). It seems to accordmore closely with observable clinical data toplace aggression and libido on an approximatelyequal footing in this respect. Certainly thosechildhood instinctual conflicts which persist intoadult life and which are accessible to scrutiny bythe application of the psychoanalytical methodalways relate in part to frightening aggressivewishes which give rise to the familiar variety ofdefensive reactions and compromise formations.One can hardly escape the conclusion, which isgenerally accepted at present, that the aggressivedrive plays an important role in psychicalconflict and in the consequences of conflictwhich are of particular interest to us: symptomsand character traits. It is likely, in fact, that itwas the increasing awareness of the twin role ofaggression and libido in psychical conflict thatled to the conclusion that the two drives bear asimilar relationship to the pleasure principle aswell (Brenner, 1970), and that in clinical workone must analyse the aggressive as well as thelibidinal aspect of such conflicts.

THE AIMS OF AGGRESSION

Freud (1923, 1930, 1933, etc.) identified theaim as destruction of whatever is the object ofthe drive. This is in keepingwith his concept thataggression is the psychological derivative, orcounterpart, of a universally present death drive.It may be worth noting in this connection thatthe equivalence, death = destruction, isa psycho-chological one, i.e. an equivalence which arisesfrom man's imagination. It is not a physicalfact. On the contrary, in the part of the physicalworld which constitutes man's immediate en-vironment, there is no such thing as destructionof any material object, whether alive or inani-mate.Hartmann et al. (1949, p. 18) were more

cautious than Freud in keeping with their non-committal attitude with respect to the theoryof a death drive. They suggested that there maybe different aims, corresponding to differentdegrees of instinctual discharge, and seem tohave inclined toward the view that 'full' dis-charge corresponds to death or destruction ofthe object. Stone (1970) was still less in agree-ment with the idea that the aim of aggression isto destroy. While he recognized the strength and


140 CHARLES BRENNER

importance of aggressive and destructive wishesin mental life, he felt that their aims are in factso diverse as to raise serious doubts concerningthe very concept of aggression as an instinctualdrive. In general, however, psychoanalyticwriters accept the view that the aim of theaggressive drive is 'destruction of the object'.This is true even of those authors who do notsubscribe to Freud's original reason for this con-clusion, that aggression corresponds to a deathdrive.Such a view is no longer a logical necessity,

as it was originally. We have already suggestedthat the concept of aggression as an instinctualdrive is properly based on psychological dataaccessible to the psychoanalytical method ofobservation. It is these data which support theconcept, and it is from the study of these datathat a decision must be made concerning the aimof aggression. We have no other data on whichto base a decision.Certain general remarks are in order at this

point. The psychoanalytic method depends oncommunication, and primarily on verbal com-munication, i.e. on language. Its applicationyields reliable results concerning the mentalprocesses of individuals who are sufficiently de-veloped to acquire and, in most instances, touse language (Arlow & Brenner, 1969; A. Freud,1969, p. 38 ff). As psychoanalysts, we haveinformation concerning the psychical processesof such individuals which is both extensive andreliable. Our information concerning youngerindividuals is much less certain and extensive,since we cannot apply the psychoanalyticalmethod directly in such cases. Our ideas con-cerning their psychology depends on observationof behaviour alone, as it does with animals otherthan man. It is tempting to attribute to suchvery young infants psychological processeswhich resemble those with which we are familiarin older individuals who are accessible to thepsychoanalytical method (Klein et al., 1952). Anumber of authors (e.g. Waelder, 1937; Glover,1947; Brenner, 1970) have indicated the pit-falls and impropriety of such an approach, soappealing at first glance. The fact is that we haveas yet far less reliable information concerning thepsychology of the early period of post-natal lifethan we should like to have, despite the severalprogrammes of study that have been conducted inrecent years by psychoanalytically trainedobservers.These remarks are pertinent to our present

problem in the following way. We assume that

the sexual and aggressive drives are operativefrom the first days of life. This follows from ourbelief that they are genetically determined. Thuswe attribute oral tensions and gratifications tobabies from the onset of post-natal life, althoughto be sure, Freud (1905, p. 222; 1914, p. 87;1915a, p. 126)pointed very early to the likelihoodthat infantile sexuality has a root in early experi-ence as well as in genetic endowment, a relation-ship which he indicated by the term anaclitic.In the case of the sexual drive, available physio-logical evidence seems to support the proba-bility that we are correct in assuming that aninstinctual drive is more nearly independent ofexperience than are those other aspects of mentalfunctioning which we subsume under the headingof the ego (Brenner, 1970).However, it is possible that matters are not as

simple as we have supposed them to be in thisrespect. Particularly with respect to aggressionwe are not yet in a position to draw any certainconclusions concerning its characteristics duringthe period of life prior to an age at which we canuse psychoanalysis as a method of observation.What we know about the instinctual drive ofaggression is what we have learned from thepsychoanalysis of children and adults. It doesnot derive either from physiology or from obser-vations of the behaviour of infants. Howevermuch we may wish to go beyond the limits ofour present knowledge, we must recognize theuncertainty of our conclusions if weattempt to doso. If we wish our generalizations to have areasonable degree of validity, we must be con-tent, for the present, to base our ideas concerningthe aggressive drive on psychoanalytical data.When we turn to our practical task with these

general considerations in mind, what do weactually find that we can identify as the aim ofaggression? Without pretending to give acompletely satisfactory answer to this question,we can say that the aims of aggression varyfrom one stage of life to another. The mostfamiliar variation is that which parallels thevariation of libidinal aims in the progression oflibidinal phases. We speak of oral, anal andphallic aggressive aims, all of which, like thecorresponding libidinal aims, are observed to beactive in mental life well into the oedipal periodand beyond, i.e. well into that time of life whichcan be studied directly by the psychoanalyticalmethod. In addition, intellectual developmentbrings with it the possibility for alterations inthe aim of aggression. A child's wish to makeanother feel the same pain as himself, or to kill



someone, are aggressive aims which, after acertain age, are so common as to merit the termuniversal, yet the probability is that they do notoccur at all in the mind of a very young child.Before a certain age, as Freud (1900, p. 19, pp.254-5) pointed out long ago, death is a meaning-lessword. The recognition that others feel as wedo is likewise absent in the very young. It isonly in the course of development, then, that achild becomes capable of such aggressive aims.One might add the clinically important obser-vation that when one encounters fantasies ofdeath and killing in one's work with a patient,one should bear in mind the fact, long sincedocumented, that death may symbolize castra-tion. A child's wish to kill, or his fear of beingkilled, often expresses a fantasy of genital muti-lation and penetration, rather than, or in addi-tion to, a primarily aggressive wish.On the basis of the available psychological

evidence, then, it seems correct to say thataggressive aims vary with mental developmentand experience, and, as we have repeatedlynoted, it is psychological evidence that justifiesthe assumption of an aggressive drive. Such acomplex state of affairs seems to offer a regret-table contrast to what we know about the sexualdrive, whose aims are the same from one indi-vidual to the next and are understandable andexpressible in physiological-anatomical termsrather than in psychological ones. Yet are therenot similarities as well as differences?Thedifferencesare clear: sexualityisgenetically

bound to the erotogenic zones. The pattern oforgasm islikewiselargelydetermined byinherited,genetic factors. But even orgastic patternsare often strongly influenced by psychologicalfactors as well. They may be greatly altered bypsychical conflicts which are significantly relatedto ego functions and to experience. The same istrue for the relative importance of one oranother of the erotogenic zones, as well as for thedetails of just what stimulation is sought forgratification. Much attention has been paid tothe importance of experience in determiningsexual objects; less to its importance with respectto sexual aims, though these are, in fact, alsodependent on experience in no small measure.Freud (1905) early called attention to the varietyof the sexual aims of childhood, the progress inthe alterations in their relative importance, andtheir final organization at puberty. When weconsider the part which is played in this compli-cated development by experiential and relatedpsychological factors, it seems reasonable to

conclude that there are, in fact, substantial sim-ilarities between the aggressive and the sexualdrives with respect to the variety and develop-mental alterations of their aims. To note thesesimilarities should not lead one to discount thedifferences. Both similarities and differences areimportant to keep in mind.As a final comment on the subject of the aims

of aggression, it may be in order to suggest thefollowing at the present stage of our knowledgeof the subject. Aggressiveaims vary with mentaldevelopment and experience. They seem to berelated to what hurts or frightens a child.Perhaps their close relationship to the aims ofthe libidinal component drives is due at least inpart to the fact that the wishes connected withthese sexual aims so often cause fear or pain, orboth; the child hurts, or wants to hurt, someoneelse by doing to him what hurts or frightens thechild himself.The consideration of the part played in the

development of the instinctual aims of aggressionby the factors of maturation and experienceleads to the general subject of the relationshipbetween the instinctual drives and ego functions.Is this a relationship which is primarily one ofantagonism or one of cooperation; or is therelationship too variable to permit of general-izations couched in such broad terms?The circumstances of psychoanalytic obser-

vation are such as to emphasize those instancesin mental life in which there is conflict betweenthe ego and the instinctual drives. An individualurgently wishes gratifications and at the sametime urgently opposes those very wishes becauseof the fear and guilt which are associated withthe gratifications in question. Yet even in suchinstances the relationship between ego and id isby no means a simple one. The instinctualderivatives which we observe by means of thepsychoanalytical method are always wishes fora particular form of gratification which involveparticular objects. They are not inchoate, inde-finable pressures for unspecified activity. Inde-terminate tensions of this sort may be activevery early in life. We suspect that they are. Butwe know nothing of them directly; we have nodata about them. The only mental processesthat we can observe, the only ones about whichwe can collect information by the use of psycho-analysis, are ones which have clearly beeninfluenced by experience; ones which have been,in part, moulded by observation, by memory, bythought, however primitive; in a word, oneswhich involve the functioning of the child's ego.


142 CHARLES BRENNER

One can say the same thing in another way bypointing out that the instinctual wishes of child-hood which are repressed, or defended againstin other ways, and which give rise to conflictand to symptoms, are wishes which concernchildhood events and memories that are specificfor that child, as well as his thoughts and fan-tasies about them. It has been suggested (Beres,1960, personal communication) that, to beconsistent in our theories, repressed wishes andfantasies must be regarded as belonging properlyunder the heading of the ego. Freud's decisionwas different, however. From the very beginninghe included such repressed wishes under theheading Ucs., and, later, the heading, the id.His reason for deciding to do this is based onthe dynamics of the mind. Such repressedwishes have the driving quality which is the mostcharacteristic attribute of the instinctual drives;a quality which Freud considered to be so basicthat he used it to name them as he did: thedrives. Freud (l915b, pp. 190-1) recognized thefact that to include repressed wishes among themental manifestations of the instinctual drivesmakes more difficult the task of distinguishingbetween them and other mental phenomena. Ashe expressed it, such wishes are dynamicallypart of the Ucs., even though by their formalcharacteristics they seem to be part of the Pes,The fact is that our present theoretical divisionof the mental apparatus into ego, superego andid is so useful in clinical work precisely becauseit is based in large part on dynamic relationshipswithin the mind (cf. Arlow & Brenner, 1966).As A. Freud (1936, p. 5 ff.) noted, in the absenceof conflict there is no division among the mentalagencies.The nature of man is such that the experiences

and objects of early life help to determine theconditions of gratification of his instinctualdrives forever after. One cannot discuss theaims of either aggression or sexuality withoutgiving due consideration to this aspect of therelationship between the instinctual drives andthe functions of the ego. There is no doubt thatthe course and development of the instinctualdrives is influenced by other factors as well,among which are certainly some that are geneti-cally determined. What is important to bear inmind is the intimacy and the complexity of therelationship between such factors and thosewhich we relate to the functioning of the ego.

DRIVE FUSION

The final topic to be considered in this pre-

sentation is the theory of the fusion and defusionof the instinctual drives. The German wordwhich Freud usually employed in this connection(Mischung) is slightly more ambiguous than theEnglish word, fusion. It means either mixture oralloy.If one assumes, as did Freud, that aggression

is the reflection in mental life of a generallypresent death drive, the concept of fusion is anattractive possibility. In the physical sphere, onecan assume that it is the fusion of the two drivesthat accounts for the immortality of germ plasmand that makes possible the reproduction ofspecies. In addition it seemed to Freud thatclinically observable facts in connection withidentification, and with regression, in general,support his fusion-defusion theory from thepsychological side. Identification plays ademonstrably large role in both melancholia andin superego formation. In both there is a con-comitant increase in self-directed aggression.Freud reasoned as follows. Identification is aprimitive form of object relation. The appear-ance of identification in melancholia and insuperego formation is therefore to be attributedto regression. One can explain the increase ofself-directed aggression if one assumes that re-gression leads to a defusion of the instinctualdrives, the unmixed aggression being once moreself-directed, as it was originally, before itbecame mixed with libido and turned outwardin the normal course of development after birth.If one does not take the position of relating

aggression as an instinctual drive in mental lifeto a universally present death drive, it is difficultor impossible to decide whether aggression andlibido are separate at birth and become mixedin the course of development, as Freud asserted,or whether they are indistinguishable at birthand develop into separate and distinguishablefactors in mental life in the course of develop-ment, an alternative suggestion made by Fenichel(1935, p. 367 ff.), Jacobson (1964, p. 13), andothers. The psychological data are not such asto permit a decision. One cannot, as we haveobserved already, gather reliable pertinent evi-dence by the use of the psychoanalytical methodbefore a very considerable degree of developmenthas already taken place, nor are reconstructionsthoroughly convincing.For example, identification has been found to

be of much more general importance in mentallife and development than was apparent whenFreud wrote 'Mourning and Melancholia' in1917. It is not a primitive mechanism that



recurs regressively only in connection with objectloss. On the contrary, even in superego forma-tion, identification with the feared and enviedrival is principally dependent on factors otherthan object loss. Identification certainly plays alarge role normally as well as pathologically inmany of the object relations of later life, as wellas in the early ones, and it is not always accom-panied by an increase in self-directed aggression.In some instances, as, for example, in groupformation, it leads to diminution of self-directedaggression and turning of aggression outward.In other instances, no major shift is discerniblein the aims and object of aggression. In otherwords, the clincial facts connected with thephenomenon of identification are not compel-lingly in support of Freud's theory of instinctualfusion.Another set of phenomena that have been

adduced in support of the theory of fusion hasto do with ambivalence. It has been assertedthat psychoanalytical observations demonstratethat ambivalence is maximal in the earliest, oralphase of life, and minimal in the post-oedipalgenital phase, at least when psychosexual devel-opment is normal. In the psychoanalyticalliterature of a few decades ago one frequentlycomes across the view that one of the chiefgoals of psychoanalytical therapy is to assist thepatient to achieve a stage of post-ambivalentobject relations, a stage which was either relin-quished as a result of regression at the onset ofhis neurosis, or one which he never achieved inany substantial measure.No one can doubt the clinical significance of

ambivalence, nor overlook the great role it playsin many aspects of pathological mental conflicts.However, it is as yet unproven that there is anormal progression from ambivalence to non-ambivalence in the first years of life, a progres-sion which, if it were to be demonstrated, wouldoffer considerable support to Freud's theory ofinstinctual fusion, since it would fit so well withit, and be so naturally explained by it. Thepsychoanalytical evidence which is available atpresent speaks more strongly in favour of theview that psychical conflicts which are related to

intense feelings of love and hate toward the sameindividual arise in most persons during or afterthe third year of life, i.e. in the course of theoedipal phase of development. One cannot dis-prove the possibility that ambivalence as a potentforce in mental life regularly antedates the oedi-pal period, though there are substantial argu-ments in favour of the view that it is unlikely.One can say, however, that all available evidencespeaks in favour of the view that ambivalence isnormallyat its peak during oedipal periodrather than that it is then in decline from apreviously higher level of intensity.Thus, what evidence we have at present is not

sufficient to support a decision in favour of thetwo theoretical possibilities that have beenoffered. We cannot say whether aggression andsexuality are separate at birth and graduallymix or fuse in the course of normal development,or whether the two differentiate gradually froma common matrix, as Fenichel (1935) and otherssuggest.

SUMMARY(1)Psychologicalevidenceseemsto bean acceptable

basis for the concept of aggression as an instinctualdrive. Supporting evidence from other branches ofbiology, though it would be welcome, is not essential,nor is it available at present. (2) No source of aggres-sion can be specified, other than a psychologicalone. Aggression cannot, at present, be related toany physiological phenomena other than brainfunctioning. (3) There is no evidence at present tosupport the view that the aggressive drive is a mea-sure of the demand of bodily processes on mentalfunctioning. (4) Aggression and libido bear similarrelations to the pleasure principle. In general,discharge is associated with pleasure; lack of dis-charge, with unpleasure. (5)The respectiveroles of thetwo drives are likewise similar with respect topsychical conflict. (6) The aim of aggression is notuniformly destruction of the cathected object. Onthe contrary, the aim is variable, and is intimatelyrelated to experience and to ego functions. (7) Ingeneral, the relationship between ego functions andthe drives is an extremely complex and close one.(8) It seems impossible to decide at present betweenthe theory of drive fusion and that of drive differen-tiation.

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the psychoanalytic concept of aggression

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