In modern psychoanalysis, aggression is important. Managing aggression is healthy and maturational. In fact, there is something called the dual drive theory, one of the early theories of psychoanalysis. Freud first proposed that there was only libido, love, pulling things close and that encompassed all our actions and feelings. It took World War II for Freud to realize that aggression should be a separate drive. The dual drive theory is the combination of libido and aggression, pulling and pushing.
It was Freud’s belief that it is the healthy fusion of the two that propels us forward in a positive and healthy manner. Sexual intercourse is an example; it is both libido and aggression. If you just lay there, nothing is going to happen. You need some movement, you need some aggression, so it is really the fusion of libido and aggression. ~ Rafael Sharón, NCPsyA, SCPsyA, Psychoanalyst in Princeton NJ
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