This controversial publication of the 1920s marks a turning point in Freud's theoretical approach. Previous to Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud attributed most behaviours to sexual impulses. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud outlines core psychoanalytic concepts, including libido, wish fulfillment, and repression. He paints a picture of the human struggle between instincts-the first set being creativity, harmony, and sexual connection, and the opposing set drawing us toward repetition, aggression, and compulsion. Perhaps most significant to this work, he moves past the conversation of sexual impulses and focuses on the death drive, or "Thanatos," which he defines as "an urge inherent in all organic life to restore an earlier state of things." The concept of Thanatos formed a path to subsequent theories concerning the mind's attacks on itself, negative narcissism, and addiction to near-death experiences-a concept which helped link Western psychoanalysis with Eastern perspectives on life and death. SIGMUND FREUD was born in Moravia (now Czech Republic) in 1856. From ages four to eighty-two he lived in Vienna, where he received his medical degree (1881). As a young medical student and researcher, his focus was neurobiology. After graduating, Freud began treating various psychological disorders through a private practice he started. Influenced by his colleague Josef Breuer, Freud began studying talk therapy more intently, with specific focus on the traumatic experiences and sexual origins of a patient's neuroses. He is well-known for the creation of psychoanalysis as well as for his work with the id, ego, and superego; psychic energy; Oedipus complex; dream analysis; and the fundamental discovery of the unconscious forces that influence our everyday thoughts and actions. Freud had six children with Martha Bernays, the youngest of whom (Anna Freud) continued her father's work. In 1938 Freud fled to England to escape the Nazis. He died in 1939.
