The Freudian Trieb – Beyond Freud

Abstract

Within the arguments that take part in the translational quarrel around the Freudian Trieb, it is very common for two complementary approaches to be adopted: on the one hand, the discussion of etymological and semantic aspects of the German word, and, on the other, its conceptual elaboration by Freud. In this article, we outline a research program with another guideline: to study the Trieb concept in non-Freudian texts, which however directly or indirectly may have influenced Freud’s theorization; it is, therefore, a study of historical-conceptual nature of the concept, and not just an internal one. In fact, when opening his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud lists a series of authors upon whom he based his own reasoning about the Geschlechtstrieb, and not in vain all of them employ the same term. The research, still in an incipient stage, demonstrates the belonging of Freudian theorization about the Trieb to a much broader scientific panorama (encompassing neurology, physiology, evolutionism, sexology, reflexology etc.), which makes anachronistic to translate Trieb to the French quasi-neologism “pulsion”. This is not intended to close the discussion, but rather to open it, as new research is required to enrich the debate.