THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

OF

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

VOLUME XIII JULY 1932 PART 3

ORIGINAL PAPERS

LIBIDINAL TYPES
BY
SIGM. FREUD 』

Observation teaches us that in individual human beings the general
features of humanity are embodied in almost infinite variety. If we
follow the promptings of a legitimate desire to distinguish particular
types in this multiplicity, we must begin by selecting the charac-
teristics to look for and the points of view to bear in mind in making
our differentiation. For this purpose physical qualities will be no less
useful than mental; it will be most valuable of all if we can make
our classification on the basis of a regularly occurring combination of
physical and mental characteristics.

It is doubtful whether we are as yet able to discover types of this
order, although we shall certainly be able to do so sometime on a
basis of which we are still ignorant. If we confine our efforts to defining
certain purely psychological types, the libidinal situation will have
the first claim to serve as the basis of our classification. It may fairly
be demanded that this classification should not merely be deduced
from our knowledge or our conjectures about the libido, but that it
should be easily verified in actual experience and should help to clarify
the mass of our observations and enable us to grasp their meaning.
Let it be admitted at once that there is no need to suppose that, even
in the psychic sphere, these libidinal types are the only possible ones ;
if we take other characteristics as our basis of classification we might
be able to distinguish a whole series of other psychological types.
But there is one rule which must apply to all such types: they must
not merge with specific clinical pictures. On the contrary, they should
embrace all the variations which according to our practical standards
fall within the category of the normal. In their extreme developments,

277 19

al ae GZ SE

Fo

e

②⑦⑧ SIGM. FREUD

however, they may well approximate to clinical pictures and so help
to bridge the gulf which is assumed to exist between the normal and
the pathological.

Now we can distinguish three main libidinal types, according as
the subject’s libido is mainly allocated to one or another region of the
mental apparatus. To name these types is not very easy ; following
the lines of our depth-psychology, I should be inclined to call them
the erotic, the narcissistic and the obsessional type.

The erotic type is easily characterized. Erotics are persons whose
main interest—the relatively largest amount of their libido—is focused
on love. Loving, but above all being loved, is for them the most
important thing in life. They are governed by the dread of loss of
love, and this makes them peculiarly dependent on those who may
withhold their love from them. Even in its pure form this type is a
very common one. Variations occur according as it is blended with
another type and as the element of aggression in it is strong or weak.
From the social and cultural standpoint this type represents the
elementary instinctual claims of the id, to which the other psychic
institutions have become docile. ,

The second type is that which I have termed the obsessional—
a name which may at first seem rather strange ; its distinctive charac-
teristic is the supremacy exercised by the super-ego, which is detached "
from the ego with great accompanying tension. Persons of this type
are governed by anxiety of conscience instead of by the dread of
losing love ; they exhibit, we might say, an inner instead of an outer
dependence ; they develop a high degree of self-reliance, and from the
social standpoint they are the true upholders of civilization, for the
most part in a conservative spirit. -

The characteristics of the third type, justly called the narcissistic,
are in the main negatively described. There is no tension between
ego and super-ego—indeed, starting from this type one would hardly
have arrived at the notion of a super-ego ; there is no preponderance
of erotic needs; the main interest is focused on self-preservation ;
the type is independent and not easily overawed. The ego has a
considerable amount of aggression available, one manifestation of this
being a proneness to activity ; where love is in question loving is
preferred to being loved. People of this type impress others as being
` personalities”; it is on them that their fellow-men are specially
likely to lean ; they readily assume the rôle of leader, give a fresh
stimulus to cultural development or break down existing conditions.

LIBIDINAL TYPES à 4 279

These pure types will hardly escape the suspicion of being deduced
from the theory of the libido. But we feel that we are on the firm
ground of experience when we turn to the mixed types which are to
be found so much more frequently than the unmixed. These new
types: the erotic-obsessional, the erotic-narcissistic and the narcissistic-
obsessional do really seem to provide a good grouping of the individual
psychic structures revealed in analysis. If we study these mixed
types we find in them pictures of characters with which we have long
been familiar. In the erotic-obsessional type the preponderance of the
instincts is restricted by the influence of the super-ego ; dependence on |
persons who are the objects in the present and, at the same time, on
the residues of former objects—parents, educators and ideal figures—.
is carried by this type to the furthest point. The erotic-narcissistic
type is perhaps the most common of all. It combines contrasting
„characteristics which are thus able to moderate one another ; studying
this type in comparison with the other two erotic types, we can sce
how aggression and activity go with a predominance of narcissism.
Finally, the narcissistic-obsessional type represents the variation most
valuable from the cultural standpoint, for it combines with indepen-
dence of external factors, and regard for the requirements of con-
science, the capacity for energetic action, and it reinforces the ego
against the super-ego.

It might be asked in jest why no mention has been made of another
mixed type which is theoretically possible: the erotic-obsessional-
narcissistic. But the answer to this jest is serious : such a type would
no longer be a type at all, but the absolute norm, the ideal harmony.
We thereupon realize that the phenomenon of different types arises
just in so far as one or two of the three main modes of expending the
libido in the mental economy have been favoured at the cost of the
others.

Another question that may be asked is what is the relation of
these libidinal types to pathology, whether some of them have a
special disposition to pass over into neurosis and, if so, which types
lead to which forms of neurosis. The answer is that the hypothesis
of these libidinal types throws no fresh light on the genesis of the
neuroses. Experience testifies that persons of all these types can live
free from neurosis. The pure types marked by the undisputed pre-
dominance of a single psychic institution seem to have a better
prospect of manifesting themselves as pure character-formations,
while we might expect that the mixed types would provide a more

280 SIGM. FREUD

fruitful soil for the conditioning factors of neurosis. But I do not
think that we should make up our mind on these points until they
have been carefully submitted to appropriate tests.

It seems easy to infer that when persons of the erotic type fall ill
they will develop hysteria, just as those of the obsessional type will
develop obsessional neurosis; but even this conclusion partakes of
the uncertainty to which I have just alluded. People of the narcis-
sistic type, who, being otherwise independent, are exposed to frustra-
tion from the external world, are peculiarly disposed to psychosis;
and their mental composition also contains some of the essential
conditioning factors which make for criminality.

We know that we have not as yet any exact certainty about the
etiological conditions of neurosis. The precipitating occasions are
frustrations and inner conflicts: conflicts between the three great
psychic institutions, conflicts arising in the libidinal economy by
reason of our bisexual disposition, conflicts between the erotic and the
aggressive instinctual components. It is the endeavour of the psycho-
logy of the neuroses to discover what imparts a pathogenic character
to these processes, which are a part of the normal course of mental
life.