Word: libido
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...only from his constantly anguished experience but from a whole raft of undigested philosophy, anthropology, occultism. The fashionable gibber of Madame Blavatsky from Tibet, the yoga writings of one Pryse ("All I say is Om," said Lawrence), the Bergsonian view that all was flux, the Freudian unconscious, the Jungian libido, many studies of primitive culture were all skimmed by Lawrence for his private religion. By the time he got to Susan, says Scholar Tindall with no particular depth, deep called to deep...
...same experiences that normal .persons took in their stride were sufficient to bowl neurotics over. The foundations of neuroses, Freud discovered, were laid in the sex experiences of early childhood. Upon this astonishing fact, which Freud painstakingly confirmed in hundreds of cases, he built his famous theories of the libido (Latin for lust) and the Oedipus complex...
Most powerful force which drives human beings, said Freud, is a primeval sex instinct, the libido. During childhood the libido is bound up with such experiences as eating, excreting and thumbsucking. In later years the libido may be transferred to another person (marriage), may remain grounded in childish sex play (perversion), or may overflow as artistic, literary, or musical creation (sublimation). In fact, said Freud, greatest source of creative work is the sex instinct...
Driven by libido, all children fall in love with their mothers, hate and fear their fathers as rivals. Sometimes they may love their fathers too (ambivalence), but the fundamental hostility remains throughout childhood. (Later on girls often fall in love with their fathers.) This Oedipus complex-sets the pattern for a child's response to other persons throughout the rest of his life. Normal persons outgrow the Oedipus situation by the time they reach maturity. But weaker characters cannot tear themselves away from their parents, hence, "fall into neuroses...
...hoist with a hookah," one pipe addict commented, while another said. "It satisfies our oral libido...