Editing Libido (section)

===Freud===
{{Psychoanalysis |Concepts}}
[[File:Sigmund Freud, by Max Halberstadt (cropped).jpg|thumb|160px|[[Sigmund Freud]]]]

[[Sigmund Freud]], who is considered the originator of the modern use of the term,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Sex and Society|last1=Crowe|first1=Felicity|last2=Hill|first2=Emily|last3=Hollingum|first3=Ben|publisher=Marshall Cavendish|year=2010|isbn=9780761479055|location=New York|pages=462}}</ref> defined libido as "the energy, regarded as a quantitative magnitude... of those instincts which have to do with all that may be comprised under the word 'love'."<ref>S. Freud, [[Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego]], 1959</ref> It is the instinctual energy or force, contained in what Freud called the [[Id, Ego and Superego|id]], the strictly unconscious structure of the [[Psyche (psychology)|psyche]]. He also explained that it is analogous to hunger, the will to power, and so on<ref>{{Cite book|title=The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain Damage|last=Malabou|first=Catherine|date=2012|publisher=Fordham University Press|isbn=9780823239672|location=New York|pages=103}}</ref> insisting that it is a fundamental instinct that is innate in all humans.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Literary Theory: The Complete Guide|last=Klages|first=Mary|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|year=2017|isbn=9781472592767|location=London|pages=245}}</ref>

Freud pointed out that these libidinal drives can conflict with the conventions of civilised behavior, represented in the psyche by the [[superego]]. It is this need to conform to society and control the libido that leads to tension and anxiety in the individual, prompting the use of [[ego defenses]] which channel the psychic energy of the unconscious drives into forms that are acceptable to the ego and superego. Excessive use of ego defenses results in [[neurosis]], so a primary goal of [[psychoanalysis]] is to make the drives accessible to [[consciousness]], allowing them to be addressed directly, thus reducing the patient's automatic resort to ego defenses.<ref>{{cite book
 | last = Reber
 | first = Arthur S.
 | author2 = Reber, Emily S.
 | title = Dictionary of Psychology
 | publisher = Penguin Reference
 | year = 2001
 | location = New York
 | url = https://archive.org/details/penguindictionar00rebe_0
 | isbn = 0-14-051451-1
 }}
</ref>

Freud viewed libido as passing through a series of [[Psychosexual development|developmental stages]] in the individual, in which the libido fixates on different erogenous zones: first the [[oral stage]] (exemplified by an infant's pleasure in nursing), then the [[anal stage]] (exemplified by a toddler's pleasure in controlling his or her bowels), then the [[phallic stage]], through a [[latency stage]] in which the libido is dormant, to its reemergence at puberty in the [[genital stage]]<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis'' (PFL 2) p. 131</ref> ([[Karl Abraham]] would later add subdivisions in both oral and anal stages.).<ref>[[Otto Fenichel]], ''The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis'' (1946)p. 101</ref> Failure to adequately adapt to the demands of these different stages could result in libidinal energy becoming 'dammed up' or [[Fixation (psychology)|fixated]] in these stages, producing certain pathological character traits in adulthood.