the central concept: passive libido
Jimmy Powdrell Campbell
I listened, earlier today, to the speech of one of the world leaders addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York. His version of events in his region and his version of his country’s place in history was so far removed from what we might term reality that I felt it appropriate to add this preface to the Psychology of Compassion.
The man I speak of must remain nameless but his country has the blood of thousands of innocents on its hands. It has been an example of brutal, compassionless and remorseless behaviour coupled with an unparalleled degree of political and media manipulation to the extent that most people in my own country have virtually no awareness of the the grave humanitarian crisis in his region and of the needless atrocities and acts of wanton cruelty that have been carried out in the name of security. In short, this is a country that, in its behaviour in the region, and in its international relations, has all the defining qualities of the psychopath.
The hallmarks of the near-psychopathic personality – lack of compassion, lack of remorse, inability to accept blame, pathological lying, glibness, conning and manipulation – are to be found not only in the high-security prison but wherever power lies. Power attracts the dysfunctional personality where a stronger individual may be indifferent to or even oblivious to what it has to offer. These men are not psychopaths. But it must be understood that even Adolf Hitler was not a psychopath. He was much more dangerous than a mere psychopath; he was a weak, neurotic man with great power.
There has been a great deal of work done to attempt to classify the psychopath by identifying his “unique” combination of personality shortcomings. In particular, the Hare checklist is widely recognised as employing a well-constructed methodology providing, as it effectively does, a score above which an individual may be safely identified as being “a psychopath.” The obvious inference, however, of Hare’s checklist is that there are degrees of psychopathy. The great mistake, I submit, has been to draw a line between the psychopathic and non-psychopathic personality. It is entirely arbitrary and superfluous, and it is entirely misleading. We, all of us, have, to some degree or other, a measure of the self-interest that is the essence of the psychopathic personality and it is only the shocking indictment of Western philosophy that follows this realization which prevents us from recognising, immediately, the continuum that the Hare checklist itself has gone some way to establish.
There are six months in everyone’s life when it’s healthy to be a psychopath.
That’s one of the inferences that can be drawn, given validation of this hypothesized model of the libido which includes rather than excludes the psychopathic personality on a libido-based spectrum of motivational maturity.
We were, according to this hypothesis, all born as psychopaths and remained so for the first six months of life. After that, we, 99% of us, have moved on. Before we are one year old, having been shown a measure of kindness and compassion, we have begun to imitate the example of our parents and we have begun to move away from the utter selfishness which every infant enjoys as a matter of entitlement.
The Psychology of Compassion proposes an avenue of research addressing the abnormal libido dynamics that are or, rather, appear to be unique to the psychopathic personality.
I find it’s sometimes the simplicity of a concept that makes it difficult to grasp and, in some cases, it is also the evident simplicity that causes us to overlook its importance. At the core of this model lies an unattractively simple concept which can be expressed in an equally simple statement: libido can be either active or passive.
As the originator of the hypothesis, I have absolutely no difficulty with this concept but I have, unfortunately, great difficulty in understanding which part of the construct I’m failing properly to explain.
adult libido: active
Both from an evolutionary and from a psychological point of view, the parent and the infant represent the most fundamental of relationships, and the most simple of psychic forces are at work. One short and very obvious sentence defines that relationship: the parent takes care of the infant.
infant libido: passive
Let’s invert the sentence: the infant is taken care of by the parent. The meaning is unchanged. I’ve simply expressed the relationship from the infant’s perspective. The infant has a passive relationship with the parent. It is being taken care of. In the context of this relationship, the parent’s motivation is active where the infant’s is passive: it cries because it desires to be fed. That is to say the infant’s motivation carries through not to its own actions but to that of the parent.
This statement is presented not as a premise but as an introduction to the construct. Having said that, however, the parent and the infant, if we were to accept the premise, are two very different animals from a psychological point of view. They require a completely different understanding and that understanding cannot be attained without a radical understanding of the nature of libido.
The number of erudite professionals who will say, “yes, yes, yes, we all know what libido is,” and then proceeed to demonstrate their ignorance of its most rudimentary function, is quite astonishing. The output or intensity of the libido is measured in urgency. It is the urgency of the intended action which is dictated by the libido. But in the most important respects, the infant is effectively incapable of action. Its survival is dependent upon the actions of its parents. The infant libido is passive in that its urgency references not its own action but that which it desires to be done to or for it.
It is an act of gross academic pretension to claim to understand the nature of libido in ignorance of the existence of infantile passive libido.
There has been much discussion recently about violence breeding violence but it is much less misleading to say that weakness breeds weakness, and that violence is only one of many forms of weakness. There is a world of difference between a parent who eventually resorts to a smack to end a tantrum and a parent who uses violence against their own child out of their own anger or frustration.
The weak parent tends, I submit, to be passively motivated: he will use violence against his child not because he (rightly or wrongly) genuinely believes that, in this instance, the child will benefit from physical discipline but simply because the child has annoyed him. Not unlike a child, his first concern is how he, himself, feels.
By placing his own needs above the needs of his child, the weak parent has reversed the psychologically-fundamental relationship between parent and child, depriving the child, at least for that moment, of the security and care upon which it relies and, in this way, he passes some of his weakness to the next generation.
Healthy and unhealthy passive motivation
Few would disagree that the psycopathic personality has some parallels with the infant personality. All he thinks about is how he is being treated, what he wants, what he needs. He hasn’t, at any point, learnt to care for anyone except himself. He has absolutely no compassion for anything other than himself. Like an infant, his first recourse is to manipulation; he feels instinctively that he is entitled to be treated well. If the hypothesis is valid, however, these similarities are not accidental. If it is valid, the infant and the psychopath have in common a very special kind of immaturity: immaturity of the libido.
It is generally understood that libido is an “invention” of the mind, devoid of any physical existence. There is, however, a relationship between libido and time. As I have said, the output/intensity of the libido is measured in urgency. The libido dictates not the action itself but the urgency of the action. Some relationship between the libido and the passage of time is, I hope you will agree, a prerequisite of action. Survival, in the most basic fight-or-flight sense, depends not only upon the ability to take action, to move, for example, from here to elsewhere, but upon the facility to have a care to the time taken to get there. At the very core of motivation – the urgency of action – there lies, necessarily, an unconscious relationship to or sense of the passage of time.
The infant libido has an output measured in urgency but it is important to remember that, if the model is valid, the infant’s motivation is passive. It wants to be cared for. The action which the infant requires is not its own action but that of the parent. When it feels the need for food, it cries. When it wants food urgently, it cries harder. It wants to be fed… passive. The infant libido is directed entirely passively, i.e. its vector is entirely opposite to that of the (healthy) adult. The infant’s “reality” is entirely internal, populated by “person” complexes, representative of the infant’s subjective view of the actual world. The infant’s understanding of the complex it knows as its parent is in terms only of how and to what extent that “person” serves the needs of the infant, how that “person” impacts upon the life of the infant. Beyond that, the “person” it knows as its parent has no existence and no value.
We start out in life weak, entirely dependent, needing, wanting, utterly self-orientated, utterly selfish and completely passive in motivation. As we grow, we grow stronger. We grow towards becoming the parent. We learn to care for and care about people and things external to ourselves, external to our own needs and desires. We learn to give, not just to take. The mature adult libido is active in orientation. It references its own action. The libido of the psychopath, on the other hand, is almost identical to that of the infant; it is almost 100% internalized, almost 100% passive in orientation, referencing the action of others. He may appear mature in his manners and show no obvious sign of his dangerously immature libido but he has merely learnt to act like an adult even, perhaps, to the extent of showing apparent compassion and empathy (which he has observed in others) but, in reality, his entire motivation and outlook is totally passive, manipulative, requiring, infant-like, the action of another party, self-orientated, unchanged from the early days of his life when he naturally expected to be cared for and treated well by his parents. He has, I submit, a sense of entitlement because his libido is identical to that of an infant… passive.
What I am about to set out is a psychological construct that might, I believe, have been discovered many years ago but for an unresolved argument between three of the founders of modern psychology: Jung, Adler and Freud. The disagreement was on the most fundamental question facing them. It caused a divergence in the course of the science that is reflected in three irreconcilable “schools of thought” to this day, and followed by an inevitable marginalization of the whole field of psychodynamic theory. All three concurred upon the existence of the libido but they could not remotely agree upon its nature, its effect or its mechanics. Tragically, they split up precisely because of their common fascination with the question of motivation. Had they considered, in this context, the psychologically-absolutely-fundamental relationship between the adult and the infant, had each only seriously considered the possibility that the other was correct, I believe they would have found that all three arguments were sound, each addressing merely a different aspect of the mechanics of the libido.
The Psychology of Compassion
The conflict of active and passive libido in the normal personality and the relationship of that conflict to root/branch intellectual type and past/future motivational orientation.
Let me start with what may seem to be a wild assertion. There is absolutely nothing clinically wrong with the mind of the psychopath; he is purely a statistical phenomenon. In the simplest and, perhaps, most accurate terms, he’s just a weak person, in the extreme. The psychopath is presently understood only in terms of a combination of various typical characteristics – lack of empathy, lack of remorse, manipulative behaviour etc.. In other words, he is effectively known to us and understood mainly by and in terms of his behaviour. This paper revisits some early psychodynamic concepts that, properly integrated, indicate that the libido of the psychopath is unlike that of the normal personality, and that the fundamental and defining attribute of the psychopathic personality is the relative absence of a feature which I hope to show to be of the essence of the normal personality: libido conflict. It is further postulated that this absence of libido conflict is characteristic of the libido of the normal infant.
As a foreword, I have to say 1) that I’m expressing the concepts to the best of my ability, 2) but I also realize that maybe that’s just not good enough, in which case, please don’t hesitate to get in touch and give me a chance to try to put it another way.
The existence of libido conflict was first asserted by Freud who expressed his understanding in terms of the life and death instincts. The concept of a bi-directional libido was also introduced by Jung in his theory of extraversion and introversion. In spite of a period of collaboration, neither succeeded in coming to an understanding of the mechanism of the libido. They argued from thoroughly polarized positions on the subject but neither appear to have seriously considered the possibilty that they could both be correct and, incidentally, that Adler, who presented yet another contradictory libido theory, could also be following thoroughly sound reasoning. The conflict of active and passive libido is, I hope to demonstrate, not only characteristic of the normal personality, it is the most fundamental dynamic mechanism of the psyche – the mechanics of strength and weakness. If the model is valid, compassion is not a mere attribute of personality, it is the essence of life itself.
Before discussing the concept of libido conflict I should try, briefly, to clarify my terminology. The term libido is often understood to be interchangeable with the term psychic energy. But what is psychic energy? Unfortunately, the most balanced response to that question must be to dismiss the idea that it has any existence outside of the imagination but I’m obliged to make reference to it briefly, as did Freud and Jung, at length. The libido, or psychic energy, pertains almost entirely to action: if animals were incapable of action, there would be no need for the psychic mechanism we call libido. In this model, it is the function of the libido, both consciously and unconsciously, to govern the urgency of the action we are about to take i.e. the output/intensity of the libido is measured in urgency.
Jung’s extraversion (an upward and outward flow of libido) and introversion (a downward and inward flow), and Freud’s altogether different bi-directional libido (life instinct and death instinct) both relate to an imagined flow of psychic energy. Even in that short sentence, however, it can be seen that the Freudian and Jungian theories of libido are utterly incompatible:
- The Jungian theory of libido leads us to the idea of two personality types, extravert and introvert – neither one any “better” than the other, just different: one tending to be more outgoing, the other more reserved.
- Freudian libido theory confronts us with a much more serious proposition: a positive and a negative flow of energy – life-instincts and death-instincts; one desirous of giving life and the other of taking it away; one building and the other destroying.
If the attributes of Jung’s extraversion/introversion libido are valid, clearly, one might think, those of Freud’s life/death instinct are wrong and vice versa. They might both be wrong but they cannot possibly both be right, or at least, so it seems. Paradoxically, however, both can be shown to be, in practice and in fact, valid theories of the libido, provided they are considered independently – both valid and yet their validity is mutually exclusive? This is a riddle that has been swept under the carpet almost since the dawn of Psychology and the key to the riddle is time. It is impossible for a mechanism to exist that has its output measured in urgency without there being some form of input relating to time.
Of all the senses, the sense of the passage of time is perhaps the most subtle and difficult to conceptualize but for as long as you are prepared to give me the benefit of the doubt, I invite you to substitute the notion of the flow of psychic energy with that of the flow of time, and to put aside the idea that the libido is energy at all. Time is, in fact, as central to psychodynamics as it is to physical dynamics and the way in which the mind processes time differs from person to person. In the case of the psychopath, it differs markedly. All that being said, if you’re not comfortable with the idea, it doesn’t really matter at this point. The notion of the flow is enough for the moment.
Coincidentally, I came to this by observing a phenomenon and following an enquiry very similar to that which had led Jung into the same territory: I had realized, instinctively, in the midst of an argument, that the other fellow was (erroneously) forming the same opinion about my intellectual shortcomings as I was (possibly erroneously) about his. It was almost as if we were not speaking the same language – two diametrically opposed ways of understanding the same thing. The actual subject of discussion is irrelevant but the communication problem is something which we have all experienced, if unknowingly. What it came down to was this: every event, every action and, more importantly, every motivation is, for me, explicable in terms of its origin, its cause. Why do I behave as I do? Because, (I think) to a great extent, my upbringing, my past dictates my behaviour. This cause-orientated view, that the past explains all, is always true for me but it makes absolutely no sense to someone – let’s say 10% of the population – for whom the aim or goal of every event and every action is what is plain to see, and is all that really matters.
It was many years later that I discovered that Jung, as a third party, had been witness to exactly the same communication phenomenon: Freud who saw only the cause and Adler who saw only the goal. In the introduction to only one of the editions of “PsychologicalTypes” does Jung come clean and explain that the origin of his theory of extraversion and introversion was his observation of that communication problem between Adler and Freud and his recognition, in the first instance, of the possible existence of an intellectual typology in terms simply of past or future intellectual orientation. This was Jung’s starting point and it was also mine but Jung was soon to abandon the idea of an intellectual typology – (I’ll come back to this) – and, in its place, he postulated his well-known libido typology.
| Intellectual Orientation (Root Intellect and Branch Intellect) |
The premised past-orientated intellect (evidenced by let’s say 90% of the population) is typified by the tendency and aptitude to get to the root of the issue. Especially where motivation is under discussion, he or she will always focus upon cause. Where there is a need to understand, it is in terms of the radical. It has been suggested that this is a difficult concept to establish experimentally but, in truth, it is as simple as that. The intellectual orientation can be established by testing for this alone: does the mind tend to the radical; does it focus upon the root of the issue; is the aptitude root and cause related? If it is, then it is a past-orientated intellect – a root intellect. It follows also that, for the root intellect, a high score for root/cause aptitude should be accompanied by a negative score for branch/goal aptitude.
I am relying upon memory here but I believe, as an example, I can best cite the actual discussion which caught Jung’s attention. Freud and Adler were discussing a particular case, a married woman whose hysteria, according to Freud, could be attributed only to an event or events in her past. Find the repressed memory and her hysteria could be cured. There was, Freud insisted, no other way of looking at the case. Adler conceded that her childhood may hold some secrets but he was equally adamant that, regardless of her past, she was in control of herself to a much greater degree than Freud seemed prepared to accept and that her behaviour was her way of gaining power over her husband. Her behaviour was not explained by something in her past but by understanding her aim, her goal – what she wished to achieve in the future. Both Freud and Adler were imposing their own intellectual type upon the woman. Freudian and Adlerian psychologists are doing the same thing to this day. I make this observation not as a criticism but as a matter of plain fact to be kept in mind. I say “intellectual type” as opposed to “psychological type” with, I believe, good reason. This is the very foundation of Jung’s theory of extraversion and introversion and, in spite of the empirical evidence of its validity, I believe his hypothesis addresses only a part of the mechanism (as does Freud’s and as does Adler’s). As I have said, Jung’s observations led him to postulate the existence, in the first instance, of an intellectual typology. But there is, and was, no need and no justification for taking the next step of assuming that this intellectual typology has its foundation in the libido when the reverse (i.e. the direction of the libido being in some way dependent upon the intellectual type) was at least equally likely.
The less common future-orientated intellect is typified by the tendency and aptitude to extrapolate and to deal with the goals, aims, consequences, and ramifications of the issue. These, therefore, are the two “types” upon which this model is founded. Extraversion and introversion does finally come into the whole picture but it is the existence of root/branch intellectual type (as opposed to Jung’s libido typology) which is the first premise that requires to be tested.
I think it can be seen that the Freudian psychologists provide the most obvious ready-made pool of past-orientated intellect and, likewise, the future-orientation of the Adlerians pervades all their work. Since the past or future-fixated view of motivation, in both cases, is generally derived – if you will permit the assumption – from their imposing of their own intellectual type, responses elicited from within these two groups should facilitate refinement of testing for intellectual type in a more diverse population. (I believe, also, that there are some parallels to be found in Guilford and Hoepfner’s work on Convergent and Divergent intelligence – “The Analysis of Intelligence”).
| orientation | type | focus | aptitude |
| past (most common) |
root intellect | source, cause, origin | to reduce to the fundamentals |
| future | branch Intellect | goals, aims, consequences | to extrapolate, to see ramifications |
Motivation
The intellectual orientation or type is, I believe, immutable. Whatever the origins of this differentiation might be, rightly or wrongly, I am assuming that it has a biological basis, that if you are born with a branch-intellect mind, you will enjoy the aptitudes of a branch-intellect mind for the rest of your life. Consider, now, the concept of motivation. The idea that we are not necessarily conscious of our reasons for doing what we do does not appeal to some but there can be no serious dispute as to its validity; and motivation can be seen to have anything but a fixed orientation. It might be said that the only constant is its potential to change from hour to hour.
On the subject of motivation, I had, at one time, in the back of my mind, some nebulous but useful thoughts about the association of dualities and opposites and, in particular, the idea of positive & negative psychic energy (I was about twenty years old and had been reading about Zen). I became focused upon the concept of positive & negative motivation. (By negative motivation I meant generally destructive motivation). The unconscious associations I had in mind were such as day & night; awake & asleep; creation & destruction; giving & taking; life & death etc. Accepting that association is a fundamental mechanism of the intellect, all of these seemed to me to have a bearing upon and to be in some form of perpetual relationship to motivation.
In this model, the concept of positive and negative motivation is, therefore, dependent upon the validity of at least some of these associations and upon the validity of certain moral value judgements. If, for example, an individual were to avail himself of the opportunity to profit by the sale of heroine to some school children, I would consider him to have been negatively motivated. Psychology has created a generation of victims; the heroine dealer is, according to some, a victim of his upbringing, his deprived social background or whatever, but, to the “man in the street,” this drug dealer is nothing more or less than a “selfish, evil bastard.” If this model of the libido is valid, the man in the street has been right, all along. His value judgements may not always be justified but, in this case, he is correct in recognizing that this drug dealer is “different” in some fundamental way; that his selfishness has gone beyond the bounds not only of acceptable behaviour in the neighbourhood but beyond the bounds of some sort of universal morality.
Let me digress for a moment (again). The whole area of morality is, of course, a minefield. There are so many layers of conflicting morality within every society, it might seem impossible that there can be any absolutes. Survival, however, is the key to understanding all morality. Survival of any community depends upon certain codes of behaviour, unique to that community and completely alien to some others. It is survival of the nation which dictates the unique moral code which applies during wartime. (The morality of war itself, in the 21st century, is another issue entirely but, even there, it can be seen that the questions surrounding the uncertainty of nations surviving a nuclear conflict have (or should have) changed concepts of international morality which might have seemed so clear in Victorian times).
There is, of course, honour and dishonour in the animal kingdom and the relative simplicity of some relationships sometimes facilitates an understanding of moral issues which may have some parallels in our own jungle. The leopard, for example, often uses the signal of raising its tail to convey to its potential prey that they are, for the moment, in no danger. The herd will carry on grazing as the leopard passes within striking distance because they instinctively recognize the signal and can be confident that, having raised its tail, the leopard intends, for the moment, to pass by. The need for the predator to go about her business – to tend to her young without chasing off tomorrow’s dinner – has evolved a relationship based upon trust and honour. Survival depends upon adherence to the code.
Morality is always clearest when the link to survival is most obvious. The drug dealer, unchecked, threatens the survival of a few schoolchildren. We, however, prize the survival of all children – at least those within the compass of our individual realities – and the immorality of the heroine dealer is, therefore, put beyond question. The laws of morality are far from being universal but, given a defined community, it is possible to identify certain codes of behaviour upon which the survival of that community will depend and to anticipate, therefore, that which will be generally acceptable as being right or wrong, positive or negative.
It is simply, and importantly, a matter of degree. There is extreme negative motivation – which is very easy to identify – and there is slight negative motivation – which is something which we, all of us, give free reign to every day but who cares? As a youth, one of my most frequent errors, arising out of post-adolescent lack of self-esteem, was to attempt, in conversation, to improve the other party’s opinion of me- not so much to brag as to impress subtly. In this case, to become conscious of what had been unconscious was a fairly simple matter of being honest with myself in answer to the question, “why am I telling this person this story” etc. The story would have had a purpose – a goal – (N.B. future-orientated, in my case) arising out of my desire to be thought on (passive) as being, in some way, worthy of respect. This, however trivial it may seem, is an example of what I termed negative motivation. (At the time, I only came to realize it was pathetic behaviour – I think I still do it sometimes)! My main concern, at that moment, was how the world is treating me – what the world thinks of me. Unfortunately, such is our capacity for self-deception, that some erudite professionals will argue that there was nothing negative in my attempts to impress. Can’t be helped. I only mean to stress the importance of the varying degrees of negative motivation. Everything we do has its motivation and no-one is permanently positively motivated.
| Active and Passive Motivation |
The concept of positive and negative motivation has a pivotal relationship to that of root/branch intellectual orientation but there is still a component missing from the machine: the twofold nature of action. The libido is the psychic mechanism that governs action. We must, therefore, be clear in our radical understanding of the nature of action. There is, firstly, the action where the subject is acting upon the object and then there is the action in which the object is being acted upon by the subject. It probably sounds like gibberish but it is a most important and fundamental concept. The question being: am I the subject in my own actions or or am I the object? Is my motivation, at this moment, active… or could it possibly be passive? i.e. do I, at this moment, really just want nice things to happen to me? To understand the meaning of the mechanism which we darkly perceive as “introversion and extraversion” without reference to this concept is simply impossible. It is to describe the basics of the four stroke engine in ignorance of the induction stroke.
Consider the “Normal Personality.” For many, it has become almost a sort of ideal. The term suggests a well-adjusted and social individual with a fairly healthy capacity for work and recreation – no serious vices and no obvious psychological problems. Leaving the semantics aside, there is a problem with “normal” which is common to both the scientific and the popular usage. As a measure, it has no frame of reference. It means different things in different places. By definition, it’s a relative term and, in fact, the normal personality in any civilized nation is generally something surprisingly undesirable.
It is quite normal, for example, for a young man, having attained a certain semblance of maturity, to effectively halt his emotional development. He strives to become a man for only as long as he believes that in that way his desires will be satisfied. He also believes that the process of growing up is somehow automatic and inevitable but, in reality, he will settle for a degree of immaturity far beneath his potential. He has no benchmark for maturity because all around him are much the same.
“Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” Each of us gives expression to our immaturity in different ways but there is one single underlying factor. As a child, our relationship to the world is almost exclusively passive. The child is concerned not with what it is doing in the world but with what the world is doing to or for it. When it cries, it gets the attention it needs but even where it is (foolishly) allowed to manipulate the adults around it, its relationship with those adults is still passive. It is completely and exclusively preoccupied with its own desires and that selfishness is the essence of its immaturity. It is perfectly healthy and natural for the child to exist at the centre of its world because its survival is dependent upon those around it but, thirty years later, that same degree of selfishness would be judged very unhealthy (possibly using the Hare checklist for psychopathic tendencies).
The most fundamental element of growing up is, I submit, not the acquisition of power or knowledge but the transition from that passive relationship with the world, the community and the family, to the active relationship which is natural to the adult.
There coexists, in the normal personality, a bit of both the active and the passive but they are not just attributes or qualities which merely contribute something to the overall personality. They are the two conflicting vectors of the libido, the dynamic mechanism of the psyche. Terminology becomes muddied and loses its value because different terms serve the puposes of different schools of thought but when we speak of motivation and when we talk about the libido, we are discussing the same mechanism. It is the libido itself which is in perpetual conflict -but libido conflict (motivational conflict) is not a matter of the violent opposition of forces we might expect from emotional conflict. It is, in any measure, necessarily an enfeebling conflict that ensures that the full motivational potential is never quite reached, in either direction. Libido can be measured as a fraction of unity, a percentage. It could, theoretically, be 100% active or 100% passive but, in the real world, we – ALL of us – sustain a percentage of passive libido throughout our lives – in other words, to a greater or lesser extent, we’re wrapped up in ourselves – what’s going to be good for me? – what’s going to happen to me? – what will I get out of this? – it is all passive libido. The opposition (or cancelling-out) of active and passive libido, inevitably results, at any given time, in the marginal prevalence of one over the other. It is only when the inequality is pronounced does the mature-libido (or immature-libido) personality emerge as a force to be reckoned with. Being normal falls far short of what any of us should hope to achieve.
The Mechanics
The conflict of active and passive libido in the normal personality and the relationship of that conflict to root/branch intellectual type and past/future motivational orientation.
| Employing the concept of negative and positive extraversion (and introversion), the following hypothesis proposes the coexistence, in the normal personality, of active and passive libido – and postulates that coexistence as a mechanism -a conflict of extraversion and introversion – which, regulating the effective “energy” level and effective direction of the libido, determines, dynamically, the strength or weakness of character of the individual, at any given moment. The proposition is made that strength of character can be quantifiable, that the outcome of potential ethical conflicts can be predictable, and that the "saint" and the psychopath represent the extremes of the normal distribution. |
While this arises, in fact, from an attempt to address the question of principal motivational conflict in the normal personality, it can be arrived at, also, from a re-examination of the original observations which led Jung to develop his typology.
As I have said, Jung recounts that he became aware of an apparent fundamental intellectual difference between Freud and Adler: Freud’s analysis, interpretation and understanding being persistently in terms of cause and origin and Adler’s, equally persistently, being in terms of aims and results (PsychologicalTypes, Vol. VI in the Collected Works – edition forgotten but, curiously, it was omitted in the last edition I borrowed so if anyone can help there, please get in touch).
Jung hypothesized “object fixation” as an explanation for Freud’s apparent preoccupation with causes and origins. Assuming a direct relationship between the motivational orientation and the intellectual orientation, he dismissed the possibility of Freud’s evident intellectual past-orientation being, in itself, fundamental. By proceeding to question what lay behind the phenomenon, and then identifying the individual’s “placing of emphasis” upon either subject or object, he moved, I believe, from the principle to the derivative.
What I am suggesting, firstly, is that experiment should proceed from Jung’s observations, not his conclusions. Freud’s intellect (and intellectual aptitude) was, I premise, fundamentally past-orientated (which I have termed root-intellect) while Adler was, equally unmistakably, future-orientated (branch-intellect).
Before proceeding, I think, on a basic point of logic, it’s worth noting that Jung’s “subject/object” concept of introvert and extravert differentiation related to perception and to value rather than to action, i.e. in Jung’s model, the subject is aware of the object and attributes a certain relative value or importance to it. But the concept of extraversion is, of course, meaningless without reference to the libido, and the concept of the libido assumes that the relationship between subject and object is not inert. If the libido is object directed, it is not a matter of mere awareness. The relationship must have reference to the potential, either active or passive, of action, in the widest sense. Perception, in this context, is, I believe, relevant to the psyche only in as much as it is prerequisite to action. It is the possibility, potential, and, above all, the urgency of action of the subject-upon-object or of object-upon-subject (which can be termed passive potential) that is the business of the libido, the (Freudian) “root-intellect” mind requiring, at the most fundamental level, to conceptualize action in terms of cause, the (Adlerian) “branch-intellect” mind, in terms of its result or goal. The apparent importance which these two types attach to either subject or object is, if that is the case, a consequence of the two interpretations of that which is the principal concern of the psyche: the potential actions and events which either actively or passively relate subject and object. That is to say, Jung’s observed fundamental intellectual orientation is, in fact, the reason for the extravert/introvert differentiation which was hypothesized to explain it.
If the premise is accepted, the “personality type” is properly determined not by establishing the subject’s social tendencies but by first examining the subject’s intellectual aptitudes: the less-common natural-introvert-type (Adlerian – branch intellect) mind should tend, always, to the consequences and the ramifications (the branches of possibility), whereas the mind which tends to delve to the roots, enquiring after cause, or attempting to resolve each issue to a radical understanding must be, regardless of any indications of apparent introversion (which I will come to later), that of the root-intellect natural-extravert-type.
Communication, as Jung observed, between root-intellect and branch-intellect types is frequently a frustrating business, neither being aware of the need to express themselves in terms which, from the other’s perspective, appear central or pertinent to the issue.
In developing this hypothesis of the libido of the normal personality, it is helpful, firstly, to consider that of certain individuals whose “extraversion tendencies” would place them at the far reaches of the normal distribution. (Forgive, for the moment, the apparently dogmatic assertions).
Because his intellect is past-orientated (origins, causes), the natural-extravert (Freudian – root intellect) type, in its healthiest (or most extreme) form, instinctively derives motivation from the past, shaping his actions according to a cause or principle and almost totally without reference to consequence. Nothing is more empowering to the root-intellect personality than the vow, – “Ich Dien”- the oath of service. Honour persists as a principle motivation in the root-intellect extravert-type’s (dynamic) motivational hierarchy and the (extremely rare) completely positive (which I will come to later) extravert will obey its dictates even with the understanding that the outcome may yield several possibilities for disaster for his or her self. The apparent disregard for consequence which seems to accompany extraversion is not, I submit, a derivative but the very essence of healthy extraversion. Consequence is, for the extremely positive (root-intellect) extravert, merely an intellectual consideration and not at all a major factor in the motivational mechanism. The healthy extravert’s self-perception is that of the originator of action and the libido is, therefore, outwardly directed toward the object. His well-defined self-image includes his own system of values, convictions and principles and he brings his sense of identity to every situation. He is, I submit, an extravert because he is intellectually past-orientated and almost exclusively (positively) past-motivated.
Where the (root-intellect) healthy extravert has a sense of identity, the (branch-intellect) healthy introvert has a sense of purpose. The introvert’s personality is thus less obvious, less defined. His identity is inferred from his aims and purposes. His reputation of appearing to be more secretive or reserved is, to an extent, deserved but principally because his sense of purpose rather than identity is central to his existence. With the motivational hierarchy pertaining often to justice, the mind of the introvert type, in its healthiest (or most extreme) form, has a clear aim in view. It looks to the future and explains action in terms of the intended result. As regards aptitude, there is frequently a marked tendency to be observant, to absorb, without effort, a proliferation of detail but there is, invariably, a distinct ability and tendency to extrapolate, to consider the purpose or consequences of an event – the ramifications. In this way, above all else, the (branch-intellect) healthy introvert-type can and, for reasons which I hope will become clear, should be identified. It is an intellect that, “by design,” is future-orientated and, out-of-the-box, it has the facility and the functionality to address the business of action in terms of consequence.
This intellectual basis for the typology which, (I apologize for repeating myself … again), was the original basis for Jung’s enquiry, exposes a presumption which, I believe, has undermined a clear understanding of the mechanism of the psyche: the presumption being that the individual who scores high on extraversion is necessarily an extravert-type or, to put it another way, that the libido of every (root-intellect) extravert-type is necessarily extraverted. Jung recognized that “every individual possesses both mechanisms – extraversion as well as introversion,” but the presumption that the highly extraverted libido is always indicative of the extravert-type destroyed almost entirely the immeasurable potential of his typology as both an investigative tool and as a possible global measure for strength of character and maturity.
Jung’s understanding was that “only the relative predominance of extraversion or introversion determines the type.” Introversion/extraversion, however, is not a trait; it is, of course, a psychic mechanism. However unavoidable it may seem, it is not, I submit, appropriate to talk simply in terms of degrees of extraversion. The abnormal (super-healthy) extraversion and introversion scores of the previous examples do not represent the two extremes of a single scale. It is commitment, on the one hand, to a cause (past-orientation), or, on the other, to a goal (future-orientation) which results in these abnormally highly extraverted or highly introverted libidos, the tendency being, in each case, to a single, unchallenged principle motivation.
The measurement of the degree of effective extraversion for each intellectual type ranges from complete introversion to complete extraverson.
More “normal” individuals (and this is central to the concept) are, I submit, accustomed to or, rather, unconscious of a state of conflicting libido (which was recognized by Freud in his life/death instincts theory of the libido), each branch-intellect (natural introvert) type sustaining, continually, a proportion of the total libido as negative libido (semi-extraversion) and the reverse being the case for each root-intellect (natural extravert) type. That is to say, I dispute the validity of the widely-accepted extravert/introvert continuum and would propose the creation of a separate scale for measurement of apparent “extraversion tendencies” for each intellect type, in much the same manner as e.g. that of sexuality for each sex, my prediction (the reasons for which, I am about to set out) being a correlation of negative libido with weakness and immaturity.
Given that the past/future intellectual orientation of the individual has been established, the negative vector of the libido can be defined as that which, in terms of past or future, pertains to a principal motivation which is negatively orientated with respect to the (immutable) intellectual orientation. Future-related motivation can only be in conflict with the root-intellect type’s natural past-rooted and identity-based extraverted motivation. Motivation which relates to e.g. an aim, hope, goal or consequence is, for the past-orientated (root-intellect) extravert-type, always negative. In spite of all appearances to the individual, it is, in Freudian terms, a death wish. In the absence of any commitment to a cause (such as parenthood), it is vital for the root-intellect type to learn to consciously avoid goal-seeking and to cultivate the ability live in and to “achieve” in the present.
This is immediately obvious from my own (root-intellect) motivation-fixated point of view but, to put it another way: the energic relationship between subject and object is reversed. It’s passive in potential, rather than active. He or she is no longer the originator of action, but a potential recipient of what the future will bring. (The flow of time is unconsciously perceived by him to be downward and inward). The intention or rather the unconscious wish of the motivationally future-orientated root-intellect personality is that the object act upon the subject. The self, instead of being the giver, the originator, is passive, in anticipation of future pleasures or, on the other hand, imagined miseries but, in both cases, the subject’s desire is that the object (the world) be at least kind to him.
The predominantly passive relationship with the object, the condition of the substantially negative personality, is something with which we are all familiar – “a man who is wrapped up in himself makes a very small package”. He tends to think the world revolves around him. He may tend to self-consciousness, seeking approval and popularity. Preoccupied with his own desires and fears, his primary concern is how the world treats him. He may score high on neuroticism but, more importantly, this (root-intellect)natural extravert-type will consistently score high on introversion.
Thus, two personalities which are effectively opposite in the most important respects have customarily been classed together as belonging to one type: both the healthy branch-intellect and the unhealthy root-intellect being identified as introverts. The distinction is obviously crucial. The introverted libido of the unhealthy root-intellect personality is passive in potential; the introverted libido of the healthy branch-intellect personality is active in potential.
Altruistic motivation – an area almost completely neglected by modern psychology – is, I submit, a commonplace dynamic determinant of adult behaviour, marginally influenced by but effectively independent of basic needs and gratification drives.
Active and Passive Libido for each Intellectual Type
| Intellectual Type | Active (Positive/Adult) Libido | Passive (Negative/Infant) Libido |
| Root Intellect (past intellectual orientation) | Extraversion (past-related motivation) | Introversion (future-related motivation) |
| Branch Intellect (future intellectual orientation) | Introversion (future-related motivation) | Extraversion (past-related motivation) |
I am, therefore, proposing a model of the libido in which the conflict of energy is expressed in terms of an assumed principle motivational conflict. In line with that, I believe the effect of the conflict can be best understood as a form of cancellation (more akin in its effect to the principle, in physics, of reversed polarity wave cancellation). The non-violent, almost mathematical nature of the conflict is, I think, not an unreasonable inference, given the lack of testimony as to its very existence. Broadly speaking, for any individual, in any given situation, it is likely that the sum of the conflicting energies can be considered analogous to an energy level: the higher the level, the stronger the character (and drive) of the individual (i.e. the ability, in the case of the extravert, to act in accordance with his principles etc. rather than in response to his passive motivation… related to e.g. fear, desire etc.), the greater the awareness, the clearer the judgement. Beyond the lowest levels (i.e. beyond the area of enfeebling maximum conflict), and in to the negative area where passive outweighs active libido, the subject may be prey to his own fears and desires, reality may be distorted and censored and, regardless of the level of intelligence, the judgement may be clouded and flawed. The drive, however, will again increase and the classic phenomenon of the weak being led by the weaker will generally present.
the libido of an infant in the body of an adult
The measurement of the degree of effective extraversion for each intellectual type must range, in theory at least, from complete introversion to complete extraverson. Should the passive component substantially outweigh the active, the resultant high level of negative libido can easily be mistaken for strength (certain motivationally-immature but powerful and charismatic individuals in history and in the worlds of business and politics readily spring to mind – sometimes referred to as the industrial psychopath). Any degree of morality, from the point of view of the psychopath, is weakness. His “strength” comes from his lack of conscience, his lack of empathy, his lack of conflicting motivation. What he doesn’t understand is that his “strength” amounts to no more than a gross immaturity of the libido. The psychopath can be defined as an individual who possesses the almost exclusively passive libido of an infant. Regardless of any apparent emotional and intellectual maturity, we’re talking about a baby. The most important and basic mechanism of the psyche, that which determines action, is still working in reverse; it’s still approaching 100% passive, 100% selfish. Devoid of empathy, devoid of responsibility, devoid of conscience, resorting to manipulation to get what it wants, it moves among normal people causing untold damage and suffering, but nothing matters except that it gets what it wants. We were all born as psychopaths but we, most of us, grew out of it while we were still too small to do any damage.
Given, firstly and crucially, identification of an individual’s intellectual type, the extraversion score can provide a measure for strength of character and motivational maturity which might not otherwise be readily obtained. In both the very weak and the very strong, the relative absence of libido conflict indicates the existence of a single, more or less unchallenged principle motivation: either commitment, on the one hand, to a cause (or goal) or, on the other hand, a complete surrender of the individual to his own desires to the exclusion or detriment of all other interests and considerations.
It follows, therefore, that this model provides, also, an altered perspective on morality as being not only a learned code of behaviour but as being an integral parameter of the most fundamental dynamic mechanism of the psyche. As I have said, the key to understanding morality is survival. Survival of the family and of the community places certain obligations upon its members. The healthy adult is aware that the needs of the family must take precedence over the desires of the individual. Weakness, however, breeds weakness. The unhealthy parent tends to impede libido development in their offspring by placing insufficient emphasis upon encouraging empathy and upon the correction of selfish behaviour both by instruction and by example. The selfishness of the individual in one situation emerges as an equivalent weakness or inadequacy in another.
Our instinctive recognition of what we perceive as “strength” in others can be attributed equally to either side of the scale. When we speak of a “strong” leader, we make no distinction between active and passive motivation; we instinctively recognize only that the individual has a greater degree of effective motivation than more “normal” people.
At the extremes of negative strength, we may, on occasion, identify the psychopathic personality but between mere selfishness/weakness and the absolute ruthlessness of the psychopath, lie some of the most dangerous personalities in existence. They can be found both in business and in politics. They have sometimes been termed the industrial psychopath. They owe their success not to their strength of character but, it might be said, to the strength of their weaknesses and to their defining failure to curb these weaknesses as might a more “normal” individual. They can generally rationalize their lack of compassion by reasoned argument – “someone has to be strong enough to take the hard decisions” – but it is their great weakness, their motivational immaturity, their negative strength, be it plain greed or ego-driven ambition, that facilitates their rise in the corporate or in the political world.
Psychopathy is, necessarily, a moral construct and, understood in terms of libido conflict, “weakness” and “evil” are effectively quantifiable, occupying merely different positions on the same finite scale (of passive libido) ranging from zero to negative one.
The moral implications are, I think, far reaching. Above all, however, this is intended to propose an avenue of research that reaches towards a clearer insight into the dynamics of the normal personality. 
There is an implicit assertion that the normal adult is much diminished by his motivational-immaturity and that that immaturity may be quantifiable. It offers the possibility that, for any population, “normal” need no longer be the benchmark. And, from that, there follows an inescapable statistical inference which is particularly fascinating: assuming the psychopathic personality can be defined in terms of the ratio of passive to active libido, the occurrence of the phenomenon of the psychopath should be expected to increase proportionately as the centre of the normal distribution moves to the passive side. The more selfish the culture, the more psychopaths it can be expected to generate.
My conclusions, in no particular order:
- there is an essential moral dimension to personality which is fundamental to the mechanism of motivation
- the transition from motivationally-passive infant to motivationally-active adult is not an automatic process; it is a journey that only a very few ever complete
- at the extremes, the psychopath can be described as an adult who has the motivational maturity of an infant. He is completely devoid of the prime attributes of the healthy parent, namely compassion and responsibility. Like a healthy infant, he feels a sense of entitlement, an instinctive expectation that the world should provide for him, see to his needs. Like an infant, he is virtually 100% self-orientated, completely passively-motivated.
- there is a continuum, on a scale of strength and weakness, ranging from the extremes of great weakness – the unchallenged infantile motivation of the psychopath – to the equally-rare unchallenged adult motivation of the competely-committed altruistic personality
- selfishness and motivational immaturity are one and the same
- a culture that promotes or encourages passive motivation whether in the form of a greed/consumer/market-driven economy or in the form of endemic racism can be expected to produce a greater proportion of genuine psychopaths, the centre of the normal distribution having been translated toward the psychopathic end of the scale. Likewise, a lower proportion of “strong” altruistic individuals can be expected
- the American Dream, a culture that promotes self-interest, measuring success in terms of status and wealth is an expression of immaturity. Altruism and generally taking an interest in the welfare of others is indicative of the mature personality. To qualify that, it has to be observed that many instances of what might be termed “Christian charity” are motivated by the self-interest of perfectly normal individuals who, nonetheless, hope to please their God (no criticism intended – just a necessary qualification).
- the culture that promotes passive motivation can be expected, also, to be led by individuals who are closer to the psychopathic end of the scale, the weak electorate recognising, always, the apparent strong leadership qualities of the most weak. The assumed inherent good of democracy obtains only in a healthy, broadly unselfish culture.
Predictions
- Experiment will demonstrate, firstly, the existence of the root/branch intellect typology. (I have, as yet, been unable to find any research which has been undertaken in this area although, as I mentioned earlier, there are some parallels in Guilford and Hoepfner’s work on Convergent and Divergent intelligence – “The Analysis of Intelligence” [1971] New York: McGraw-Hill).
- I would predict, secondly, for each intellect type, a substantial correlation between the degree of identifiable non-pathological character weakness (ranging from the psychopath to the neurotic) and the extraversion score i.e. the degree of passive libido. I already mentioned that we have a ready-made pool of root-intellect minds in the Freudian School together with an equally clear pool of branch-intellects with the Adlerian School. Initial testing of sociopaths for intellect type might also help refine testing methods. All branch-intellect (natural-introvert-type) sociopaths, (tested, please note, outside of the highly-skewed high-peer-pressure environment of prison), should score highly on extraversion (i.e. a high level of passive libido) and vice versa.
I would be pleased to hear from anyone in the practical or academic mental-health worlds who might care to comment, and particularly so in the context of the possibility of any research touching on this.
Copyright © Jimmy Powdrell Campbell 1996, 2009.
