The Regression Drive of Sigmund Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle

Freud explains that the most critical facet of psychological research are the 'drives' found in the psychological apparatus that influence the mind's unconscious thoughts and cause people to desire restoration to a prior state of being. Freud reasons that all living organisms want to be dead, as in their state of preconception, because theoretically we were dead before alive. He also notes that some people believe that humans have a drive that acts toward progression, which he disputes as only being a repression of the regressive drive. In Freud's explanations, he does not provide enough substantial evidence to support his claims that the regressive death drive exists, but not the progressive, or why it exists. He hardly considers the abundance of information supporting a progressive drive and dwells on the situations that prove his hypothesis correct.

Freud's misconceptions begin with the conservative nature of drives, which he uses as the basis to derive support for his argument. Freud poor example of the fish and embryos does not supply enough evidence to accept the conservative nature of drives as fact. Because his hypothesis of the conservative nature of drives cannot be taken as truth everything he uses it to support is of questionable accuracy. The reason the goal of life is not death can easily be demonstrated by human behavior. Humans strive to live a long life, which can be stated that the goal of life through humans is to live. Humans know that death is inevitable, but that does not make them strive for it. Suicidal behavior is the only support for a goal of death, which isn't consistent with the general population as it only makes up a small percentage.