Psychology Question

Wolf, I have never heard those terms before, but I did find this:

Destrudo

Destrudo, or Destrado, is the energy of the destructive impulse. It is the opposite of libido. While libido is the urge to create, an energy that arises from the Eros (or "life") drive, destrudo is the urge to destroy both oneself and everything else. Destrudo arises from the Thanatos drive, which also is the source of aggression, and death (in Greek mythology, Thanatos is the god of death).

Destrudo is a lesser-known life force, and is usually ignored in place of more well-known and well-defined theories of human emotion. Destrudo can be traced to Sigmund Freud's attempt to explain the actions of soldiers in World War I.

I would imagine that Mortido has to do with Freud's concept of the death wish

So, libido is the force of life, and therefore is the opposite of what you describe.

Hm, that's strange, I could have sworn I had turned on e-mail updates...



So, what you're saying is Destrudo is the wish to destroy, whilst Mortido is the wish to be destroyed?

Well, Wolf, that's the way I read it, but not all people subscribe to Freudian concepts; however, the man at least took psychological problems out of subjective philosophy and called attention to the conflicting emotional responses of individuals within their given society.

destrudo
energy associated with the death or destructive instinct.
Origin: coinage on the analogy of libido fr. L. Destruo, to destroy
This has been explained to me as that impulse to step on a bug or the cat's instinct to kill a bird even if the cat is not at all hungry. I would think this could also be attributed to the impulse of serial killers.


Freud's answer to the question (of the difference between libido and mortido) is that at the basis of the instinct to life (Libido) lies a principle of pleasure, which in order to be satisfied requires approachment/relationship with other human beings, while the instinct towards death (Mortido) works on a principle of separation/isolation

In other words Mortido is withdrawing from life, refusing to live or enjoy life, and retreating into your own unhappy miserable existence. At least this is the way it was explained to me.

I do not know what Freud thought. I do not know what he intended. Here is my interpretation of mortido. A child understands pleasure. A child understands pain. Id knows what it wants, pleasure. Id knows what it does not want pain. There is no mortido. There is no desire of death. If someone desires death it can be for only one of two reasons. The pain is too unbearable, or the guilt cannot be beared. In the id there are two impluses. There is the desire for pleasure and there is the desire to avoid pain. Babies have this. So have at this stupid idea.

It is a basic drive to seek pleasure, animals and humans alike.

The child/adult who keeps touching the hot stove - to get attention or to inflict non-threatening injury, in spite of being told, or experiencing consequences - is destrudo i.e. seeking, needing pain/discomfort of the self. (How many self destructive people do you know?)

The child/adult who seeks escape from the conflict between pleasure and destrudo, sees mortido as an end to it all. (Most suicidal people just want to be out of their "pain")

I certainly don't pay much attention to freud, don't like his theories all that much.. but this certainly is an interesting observation and new word for me.. destrudo.