Content Warning: The source material utilizes the term “neuroses” to refer to a wide range of conditions, including anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Although the term is no longer used in formal medical practice, it is often used in literature and philosophy to explore inner conflict and repression. This guide uses the term in the context of Freud’s psychological work.

Freud opens his argument with the assumed truth of the pleasure principle. Humans experience an imbalance, or an unpleasurable tension. They regulate that tension by avoiding unpleasant experiences and seeking out pleasurable ones. Freud explains these assumptions are based on his daily observations as a psychoanalyst. The drive for pleasure is housed in the id, making it difficult to access.

Freud then acknowledges that humans often engage in behaviors that are not pleasurable. If they were only driven by the pleasure principle, then the result of their actions would be always aligned with pleasure. Therefore, other forces must be at play. Freud offers several examples of the pleasure principle being thwarted by another force. The work of the ego is to maintain a balance between the expectations of the external reality and the internal drive for pleasure.