German: Wunsch (sometimes Begierde or Lust). - French: d?sir. - English: wish. - Spanish: deseo. - Italian: desiderio. - Portuguese: desejo.
o In Freudian dynamics - one of the poles of a defensive conflict: an unconscious desire strives to be realized, relying, according to the laws of the primary process, on signs associated with the first experience of satisfaction. Using dreams as an example, psychoanalysis showed how desire is imprinted in the compromise form of symptoms.
o In every general theory human beings have fundamental concepts that cannot be defined; These undoubtedly include the concept of desire in Freud's concept. Let us limit ourselves here to a few terminological considerations.
1) Let us first note that French word desk does not coincide in meaning and use with either the German word Wunsch or English word wish. Wunsch is primarily a wish, a formulated desire, while d?sir implies lust, a claim (these meanings are conveyed to German Begierde or Lust).
2) Freud's understanding of Wunsch is most clearly manifested in the theory of dreams, which makes it possible to distinguish it from a number of similar concepts.
In its most expanded definition, desire is associated with the experience of satisfaction (see this term), as a result of which “the mnestic image of perception is associated with the mnestic trace of excitation generated by the need. As soon as this need arises again, the established connection generates a mental impulse to overload the mnestic image of perception and even to the call of this perception itself, i.e. to the restoration of the situation of primary satisfaction; we call this impulse a desire; the emergence of this perception is the “fulfillment of a desire” (la).
a) Freud does not identify need and desire: need is generated by internal tension and is satisfied (Befriedigung) by a specific action* to find the desired object (for example, food). As for desire, it is inextricably linked with “mnestic traces”: its fulfillment (Erf?llung) presupposes a hallucinatory reproduction of perceptions that have turned into signs of satisfaction of this desire (see: Identity of perception). This distinction is not always respected by Freud; Thus, in some texts the compound word Wunschbefriedigung appears.
b) The search for an object in reality is entirely directed by this relationship to signs. It is the chain of signs that gives rise to fantasy* as a correlate of desire.
c) Freud's concept of desire refers only to unconscious desires reinforced with the help of stable signs inherited from childhood. However, Freud does not always use the concept of desire in the sense implied by the above definition; sometimes he talks, for example, about the desire to sleep, about preconscious desires, and even sometimes considers the result of a conflict to be a compromise between “two fulfillments of two opposite desires, having different psychic sources” (1b).
Jacques Lacan tried to understand Freud's discovery differently, making desire its basis and bringing this concept to the forefront in psychoanalytic theory. With this approach, Lacan was forced to distinguish between concepts with which desire is often confused, namely the concepts of need and demand.
The need is aimed at a specific object and is satisfied by this object. The request is formulated and addressed to another person; even where it is directed at an object, this does not have much meaning, since the request expressed in a word is always, in essence, a request for love.
Desire is born in the gap between need and request; it is irreducible to need, being in principle not a relation to a real object independent of the subject, but a relation to fantasy; however, it is also irreducible to a request that powerfully imposes itself regardless of the language and unconsciousness of another person and demands absolute recognition of oneself as another person (2).
WISH
conscious attraction reflecting a need; an experience that has turned into an effective thought about the possibility of possessing something or accomplishing something. Possessing a motivating force, it sharpens awareness of the purpose of future action and the construction of its plan. A subjective characteristic of the motivational process, in which the key experience of the subject is his goal orientation, purposefulness. Desire as a motive for activity is characterized by a fairly clear awareness of the need. At the same time, not only its objects are realized, but also possible ways of satisfaction.
WISH
an experience reflecting a need that has turned into an effective thought about the possibility of possessing something or accomplishing something. Having a motivating force, desire sharpens the awareness of the goal of a future action and the construction of its plan. Desire as a motive for activity is characterized by a fairly clear awareness of the need.
WISH
English wish; desire) is one of the forms of motivational state. The word "F." widely used in both scientific and folk psychology. It is noteworthy that in the “natural semantic metalanguage” developed by A. Wierzbicka, which “claims” to represent lexical universals, along with the primary concepts of “know”, “feel”, “think” and “speak”, there is also a universal “ wish" (or "want"). In psychology, one should also highlight a minimum of primary undefined concepts, using it as a basis for defining other psychological concepts. For now, we are forced to limit ourselves to a loose comparison of close and only intuitively clear concepts. Obviously, the concept of "F." is closely related to the concepts of need, attraction, experience.
Several interpretations of J. can be distinguished, which are far from being fully theoretically worked out. 1. Life as one of the forms of mental (subjective) experience of needs, not only organic (cf. Attraction), but also all others, including purely human ones. 2. In a more precise sense, life is a form of experiencing a need in which the object of the need (motive) and possible ways of satisfying the need are specified and “represented.” 3. Many authors interpret sex as a conscious attraction, “attraction with its consciousness” (for example, B. Spinoza, L. S. Vygotsky), which imposes an additional limitation (compared to previous interpretations). Thus, the following quasi-definitions indicate the following. semantic features: set of needs (the whole set or only a part); intentionality (objectivity, see Intention) F.; awareness. As a rule, completely different characteristics are attributed to inclinations (drives): the experience of organic (or, equivalently, biological, homeostatic, vital) needs; the possibility of non-objectification and unconsciousness. We must assume that animals have only biological drives and only unconscious ones, although they cannot be completely denied objectivity. 3. Freud, apparently, allowed the existence of both conscious and unconscious not only drives (instinctive drives), but also life. From this point of view, unconscious thoughts are understood as those that were once conscious, but , for reasons of censorship, were repressed into the area of the subconscious and continue to act on consciousness and through consciousness, manifesting itself in dreams, slips of the tongue, involuntary deviations from adequate behavior (parapraxia), etc. It is obvious that both desires and desires may. more or less strong and lasting. If it is impossible to satisfy those and others, a state of frustration arises. (B.M.)
Wish
Specificity. The key experience is goal orientation, the subject’s “aspiration” towards specific objects that he feels the need for.
WISH
1. In general – any aspiration or passion. Some authors use the term to refer to conscious or unconscious desires; others, however, prefer to limit its use to one or the other. In some cases it is used in such a way as to make it clear that the individual is not making any overt effort to obtain the object(s) of desire; here the terms goal or intention will be used to refer to desired items. 2. Object of desire.
WISH
mental impulse, urge aimed at satisfying a human need.
S. Freud addressed the problem of desire in his first fundamental work, which marked the discovery of psychoanalysis, “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1900). In it, he emphasized that “every person has desires that he does not communicate to others, and desires that he does not even admit to himself.” Both desires make themselves felt in dreams, which, in his opinion, represent the hidden fulfillment of a person’s suppressed, repressed desires. From this understanding of the essence of dreams flowed the desire of the founder of psychoanalysis to put forward and substantiate the theory of wish fulfillment.
Freud's theory of desire fulfillment was based primarily on consideration of the nature and origins of desires as such and their reflection in dreams. S. Freud proceeded from the fact that dreams reflect those human desires that are erotic and egoistic in nature. As for the possibilities of origin, manifestation of desires in dreams, they can have different sources. According to S. Freud, a desire can: awaken during the day, but due to external circumstances not find satisfaction, as a result of which an unfulfilled desire manifests itself at night; arise during the day, but undergo elimination; has no relation to waking life and relates to those desires that awaken only at night. The desire of the first kind relates to the system of preconsciousness, the second - to the transition from the system of preconsciousness to the system of the unconscious, the third - to the system of the unconscious.
Z. Freud distinguished between conscious, preconscious and unconscious desires. He admitted that conscious desires could give rise to the formation of dreams. At the same time, he believed that the dream would not have formed if the preconscious desire had not received reinforcement from the sphere of the unconscious. A conscious desire becomes the causative agent of a dream when it manages to awaken an equivalent unconscious. Expressing this consideration, S. Freud wrote: “These always active, so to speak, immortal desires of our unconscious sphere, reminiscent of the mythical titans, on which, from time immemorial, heavy mountain ranges have gravitated, once piled on them by the gods and still shaken movements of their muscles - these repressed desires themselves, however, stem from childhood, as the psychological study of neuroses shows.” Ultimately, the founder of psychoanalysis believed that the desire depicted in dreams refers, as a rule, to childhood: in an adult it stems from the subconscious system; in a child it is an unfulfilled desire of waking life.
Trying to shed light on the mental nature of desire, S. Freud distinguished between need and desire. According to his views, a collision with the necessity of life gives rise to a physical need in a person, for example, to satisfy hunger. Irritation caused by an internal need seeks a way out in the form of an internal change or mental movement - a hungry child cries, screams, flounders. Thanks to outside help, say, with the help of the mother, the child’s internal irritation is eliminated by satisfying his nutritional needs. The child experiences a feeling of satisfaction. Part of his experience is the perception of food, the memory of which is now and forever associated with the memory of satisfaction. As soon as this need appears next time, immediately, thanks to the existing association, a mental movement is caused, which, through the memory of the first perception, reproduces the situation of the previous satisfaction. “It is this mental movement that we call desire; the repeated manifestation of perception is the fulfillment of desire, and the complete restoration of perception of a feeling of satisfaction is shortest path to such satisfaction."
Introducing the hypothesis of the existence of a mental apparatus into his theoretical constructions, S. Freud believed that nothing but desire can set this apparatus in motion and that the course of irritation in it is automatically regulated by pleasant and unpleasant sensations. “The first desire seems to be the hallucinatory re-enactment of a memory of satisfaction.” In a primitive state of the psyche, desire turns into hallucination. It retains its effectiveness in hallucinatory psychoses and fantasies. Life experience modifies primitive mental activity. Thinking becomes, as it were, a substitute for hallucinatory desire. And as soon as desire can motivate mental activity, then the dream turns out to be the fulfillment of a desire, that is, an analogue of primitive mental life, part of the overcome mental life of the child.
From the point of view of S. Freud, human desires can manifest themselves not only in the form of dreams. Neurotic symptoms are also a clear manifestation of a number of fulfilled desires. However, unlike dreams, where unconscious desires dominate, neurotic symptoms are an expression not only of fulfilled unconscious desires, but also of desires from the sphere of the preconscious. Neurotic symptoms are caused by two desires arising from systems in conflict: they are formed only where two opposite realizations of desires that arose in different mental systems coincide in one expression.
These are the ideas expressed by S. Freud in his work “The Interpretation of Dreams” about the nature of human desires and their manifestation in dreams and neurotic symptoms. In his subsequent works, he used the concept of “desire” in relation to the consideration of dreams, which was reflected, in particular, in the “Lectures on an Introduction to Psychoanalysis” (1916/17). However, when discussing the nature and origins of neurotic diseases, he preferred to talk in the future not so much about desires as about human drives.
As the theory and practice of psychoanalysis developed, many psychoanalysts focused their attention on further research into human drives and, in fact, abandoned understanding the problem of desires, with the exception of discussing the Freudian theory of dreams as wish fulfillment. At the same time, the problematic of the subject’s desires became central to the structural psychoanalysis of J. Lacan (1901–1981).
Starting from S. Freud’s ideas about desire, J. Lacan gave the understanding of desire such an orientation, as a result of which he not only distinguished concepts such as “need” and “request”, but also came to the idea that, being not reducible to either , neither for the other, desire arises at the junction of both of them. The true essence of a person is precisely the subject of desire, and his desire is nothing more than the desire of the Other.
From the point of view of J. Lacan, desire is the central function that determines human experience. It “lies at the origin of everything that makes a being animate.” It is in the experience of desire that a person comes to experience his Self in relationship with being. In a word, it is desire, as an unconscious factor, that carries out the initial organization of the human world itself. Therefore, S. Freud’s emphasis on desire, which determines a person’s life, is truly significant and important for understanding what is happening in his psyche. Another thing is that the followers of the founder of psychoanalysis blindly believed his statements, according to which the core of human desire is sexual desire, and did not understand what he really wanted to say by this.
During the therapy process, the psychoanalyst interprets the patient’s thoughts and behavior from the point of view of the effectiveness of this desire, this causes resistance in the latter, although in reality the analyst resists, trying to explain to the patient that the object of his desire is a certain sexual object. However, as J. Lacan believed, the task is different, namely, to teach the subject to name his desire, the result of which will be an effective psychoanalytic influence. “By naming his desire, the subject speaks, gives birth to a new presence in the world.”
Drawing a distinction between concepts such as “need,” “request,” and “desire,” J. Lacan correlated the formation of the subject with three levels of the psyche—real, symbolic, and imaginary. If at the level of the real we are talking about the subject of need, and at the symbolic level - about the subject of a verbally expressed request, then precisely at the level of the imaginary - about the subject of desire. These ideas have become guidelines in both the research and therapeutic activities of psychoanalysts who share the views of J. Lacan on understanding the essence of human desire and who drew attention to the fact that at the moment of merging of the imaginary and the real in the analytical situation, the patient’s desire turns out to be both present and inexpressible.
Desire differs from simple wanting by deliberation. You don’t need much to want: while the body is alive, it always wants something: to move or lie down, drink or pee. She saw a beautiful handbag - she wanted it, he saw it beautiful woman- I wanted to.
Will the desire turn into a desire, will it receive the blessing of the mind? - it depends only on the person, on his views and values. Not all people are inclined to think things through; many are accustomed to acting impulsively and living without using their heads. A considerable part of people think about their desires formally, easily deceiving themselves and without difficulty proving that everything they want is what they really need. The phenomenon has been known for a long time: if they want, smart people can always justify the reasonableness of their desires. However, you should not confuse your wants and desires: you are responsible for your wants no more than for the presence or absence of appetite, and an adult is responsible for his desires in the same way as for his choices.
Wishlist is the space of our childhood, and desires are already our youth. By turning our desires into goals and projects, we become adults.
Some of our desires are derivatives of our addictions. Desire is free, dependence turns us into a slave.
The addict wants drugs. Alcoholic - get drunk. Ludeman - slot machine. Casanova is a woman. A glutton is a stuffed refrigerator.
The more developed a person is, the fewer addictions he has and the more desires he has.
(Moderate) difficulties help to kindle the power of desire. The harder it is to get what you want, the more desirable it becomes. At least for energetic people this is true. The brightness of what is desired often turns it into a fixed idea: an image that cannot be forgotten.
Yes, our desires do not always push us in the right direction. What to do in this case? Suppressing desires is not best option, but learning to manage them is useful. There is no need to fight against wrong desires; it is smarter to evoke the right desires in yourself in order to always want what you need now. IN everyday life desires are triggered by desire keys, and extinguished by desire blocks; in any case, desires can both wake up and go out.
“Now I have become more stingy in my desires, / My life! Or did I dream about you?” - Sergei Yesenin was sad. Desires live by the breath of our body, and the body tends to change its states...
But desires can not only wake up and go out; developed people know how to manage their desires. This makes sense - cool, that means I want it! Is it useful for me or people around me? Great - I want this from the bottom of my heart. Your wants and desires can and should be developed in the right direction. How? See How to develop your Want and start wanting what you need?
Desire is a craving, but not yet an action. An adult can push aside his untimely desires; an energetic person will turn his desires into plans and actions.
Desires often remain just desires, not translated into actions. The faster and more decisively we turn our desires into intentions, plans and projects, the more often our desires come true. A project is a well-formed desire. A project differs from a desire in the specificity of its formulations, its vision, at least general plan implementation and written recording. Look
Desires are given to us along with the means to realize them.
Richard Bach
True desires are taken personally and experienced joyfully.
Timur Gagin
To want means to be able.
French proverb
Wanting is not harmful, but not wanting is harmful.
Domestic
Desires are the energy of life. Our energy. The meaning of any activity is to fulfill desires. If an action does not bring the desired closer, it is... inappropriate. These are the kinds of judgments that accompany my life.
And everything would be fine, but questions also appeared. For example, this: if in the evening I sincerely want to start doing exercises tomorrow morning, then in the morning I just as sincerely want to lie down for an extra half hour. Which of these desires is true, and which is self-deception? Which of them should become a guide to action?
The questions may seem far-fetched, but the fulfillment of a desire brings joy to life, and failure to fulfill it steals it.
Actually, playing with these contradictions, I came to the classification proposed below. She gave me clarity, and with it the opportunity to act.
So, what can you want:
* Do.
* Be able.
* Feel.
* Have.
What do I want to do right now?
If you do exactly what you want to do right now, the action itself brings pleasure. What might you want to do? Run, breathe, lie down, read, have sex, drink, write poetry, scream, regret, dream, walk, play, watch a movie, chat... Whatever!
And just the fulfillment of such a simple desire can fill us with the joy of being. But! As soon as you get tired of it, you need to immediately switch to what you want to do now. Then the pleasure will last.
They tell this story. A certain housewife bought herself a bucket of apricots. I brought it home, selected the slightly rotten ones and ate them. The next day I went over again and again ate those that were already spoiled. And the next day. And then. And one more thing. Until I ended up eating a bucket of rotten apricots.
And again in other words: it makes no sense to want to do something in the future. Most likely at that very moment you will want something else. And this is exactly what will need to be done. It's stupid to want to do exercises tomorrow. But if in the morning the body asks for movement, you need to give it this pleasure.
It seems to me that the ability to do only what you want at every moment is the lot of the lucky few. I would even say very brave people. For mere mortals, there are means that allow us to fill with energy desires even actions that are not the most desirable (in themselves).
What do I want to be able to do?
In other words, what capabilities do I want to have? Quite often we need not so much to do something as to have the appropriate opportunity. I may not need to run anywhere right now, but it's nice to have healthy legs that allow me to do it at a moment's notice. I don’t plan to fight with anyone, but the ability to plant a foot in the head and escape from any attack gives confidence and self-respect.
If you like, what you can is what makes up your power. What can you want to be able to do? Live with dignity for several months without working. Go wherever you need to go comfortably at any time. Help loved ones in difficult situations. Talk to an Englishman without an interpreter. Seduce the person you like. Choose between several business offers. And so on.
Working to our capacity, we borrow from the present for the sake of the future. We can do now what we don’t want to do in itself, but it adds opportunities for us in the future. People carry mobile phones with them not because they like to carry them, but in order to be able to always be in touch. By increasing your power, you expand the range of available momentary actions. This means you will get more pleasure in the future.
But there is another aspect to the desire to gain opportunities. Most often, such desires are based on fear. For fear you cannot, you cannot, you miss, you lose. And the desire to gain confidence is the desire to get rid of fear. Which is also useful to realize.
What do I want to feel?
From the same series: what do I want to experience? Ultimately, all desires rest on this desire. If our senses bring to us exactly the experiences we want, we feel good. Moreover, we want to experience some things regularly, and others – once. Some experiences you want to stretch out for eternity, while others you want to plunge into for a moment.
What do they most often want to experience? Orgasm, flight, pleasant taste, aesthetic pleasure, comfort, interest, swimming in luxury, excitement, joy, happiness, exciting fear, merging with nature, peace, a sense of power, achieving what you want...
For this reason, people climb mountains, shell out money for exotic things, build a career, rush into adventures, jump with a parachute, leave their families - for the sake of emotions, for the sake of bodily experiences. Life is the sum of sensations. And in order to feel the beat of the rhythm of life, you are ready for a lot. Even hardships.
And one more thing. Identical sensations merge together, but different ones are remembered. Therefore, it makes sense to desire experiences – different ones. Personally, I often prefer to experience new things rather than follow the usual path. But this is a matter of taste.
What do I want to have?
The desire to possess has two aspects. The first is the expansion of my own Self. I have a wife, I have a daughter, I have my own house, I have my clothes, I have friends and relatives. And any attempt on your property (in in a broad sense) I consider it an attempt on my life.
The second aspect is all the same opportunities. If I have a car, I can use it at any time. If I have a stable income, I can be confident in tomorrow. True, as you understand, if you have unlimited opportunities to use something, you do not have to become the owner of it. Those. It makes sense to formulate most desires of this type in terms of possibilities.
They say that most Americans would rather rent summer homes than own them. It is better to pay seasonal rent than to bear the burden of ownership. And this includes taxes, repairs, and security...
On the other hand, the desire for possession is easiest to convey to your own unconscious: the picture is there. A Bentley car, a Sony laptop, an apartment on Kutuzovsky, a house on the Spanish coast, Prada shoes... Easy to see, easy to get.
Want more
I don’t know whether the scheme I proposed is suitable for the role of classification, but as a map for finding your desires, it works great. How do I suggest using it? Sit down and write at least 25 answers to each of four questions:
*What do I want to do?
* What do I want to be able to do?
*What do I want to feel?
*What do I want to have?
Total – 100 wishes. Knowing your 100 desires, you will be able to move towards at least one of them in any situation, that is, make each of your actions, if not desirable, then at least meaningful. Although... If you think a little, then the path to what you want to be able to or have can be made up of what you are in at the moment want to do or experience. And then life will become truly wonderful.
Each of us wants something. Get a job new job, get married, give your child a decent education, buy a mink coat or go to southern countries. It's even good, it's normal people's wishes.
To paraphrase the classic, we desire - therefore we exist. It can be said that without human desires there would be no civilization. But is what we want always what you really need and need?
Let's figure out what desires are, how they arise, why it is sometimes difficult to understand what we want and what other people want at our expense, and try to learn how to deal with unnecessary desires.
Don't confuse desire and dream! They have one very significant difference: a dream does not imply the presence of a goal. You can dream of owning your own island in the Pacific Ocean, but it is very difficult to set such a goal and almost impossible to achieve it. That is, we can only desire those things that we consider real for ourselves.
What kind of desires are there?
Psychologists have clearly identified five main types.
1. Basic human needs.
- Food, sleep, a roof over your head. These desires are an urgent need for any person; without their satisfaction, all other desires simply will not arise.
2. Elementary pleasures.
- Get enough sleep, go on vacation at the seaside, eat something sweet. You can do without these desires, but they improve your mood and improve your experience of life.
3. Additional needs.
- Build a house, buy a car, get higher education. Fulfilling these desires allows us to develop, change our lives for the better, and not just live.
4. Status.
- Buy a house in a prestigious area, expensive car, relax at a fashionable resort. These desires do not help us maintain and develop our lives, but they increase our self-esteem and our status in the eyes of other people.
5. Personal values.
- Plant a tree, give birth, do charity work. Such desires do not change our social status, but allow you to develop spiritual qualities.
And not all desires are truly “ours.” They are divided into:
- Own ones, which arise under the influence of subjective internal (I want to go to the theater) and objective external (I want to eat) factors. All five types of desires can be your own. Desires related to basic and personal needs are most often our own.
- Induced - when someone else’s will intervenes in the process of determining a goal, we develop induced desires. We can buy an expensive but unnecessary thing out of a desire to increase our status in the eyes of our friends, make a purchase at a sale, tempted by an impressive discount, etc. Induced desires are usually status-related, and associated with additional needs or pleasures.
- Imposed- in this case, someone else's will acts openly. Social posters alternately beg and demand that people quit smoking. Intrusive advertising haunts you at every step. Your surroundings staged a race for fashion and expensive cars. Any desire can be imposed, even one related to basic needs and personal values (cases of leaving for monasteries as a result of aggressive religious propaganda often occur today).
The ability to clearly distinguish which of the desired actions is truly “yours” and which other people “had a hand in” is one of the most important for any person.
- Whatever one may say, desire is the main motivator for action, which means that by implementing imposed or induced desires, you are dancing to someone else’s tune.
- Realizing someone else's desires can lead to you losing yourself, and perhaps for the rest of your life you will not realize what you really wanted.
- Throwing all your mental strength into “wanting” things that are completely unnecessary to you, you inevitably begin to “save” on your true desires. Why be surprised here?
However, it is easy to say: to be able to separate, but to do it is much more difficult. You can go back to where you started. In the next article we will figure out how to separate and deal with.