It is common for libido to be associated with sexual appetite.
It is common for us to hear about libido , a Spanish word with an accent on the first I. However, this term is incorrect. The valid concept is libido , with emphasis on the second I , as highlighted by the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ).
It is believed that the frequent error of accentuating the notion in the first syllable is due to the influence of livid , a word that refers to paleness or purpleness, which has nothing to do with the meaning of libido.
Having made these clarifications, we can now move forward with the definition of libido, which comes from the Latin libīdo . This is what sexual desire is called.
What is libido
Libido, therefore, is an impulse or drive that stimulates the sexual behavior of an individual and that manifests itself in different ways in the activity of the psyche. It can be said that it is about sexual appetite , which leads a person to want to satisfy it.
For medicine , there is a “normal” level of libido. An exaggerated libido implies the existence of a pathology, as does a minimized libido. In the field of psychoanalysis , meanwhile, libido is understood as a psychic energy that guides behavior towards a certain goal. When this goal is achieved, the libido is discharged.
It is considered that there is a "normal" level of libido: an exaggerated or minimized libido implies the existence of a pathology.
The sexual response
It should be noted that libido usually triggers a series of hormonal and physical changes known as sexual response . When sexual desire increases, excitement occurs: in the case of men , the erection of the penis is recorded (which grows due to the accumulation of blood), while in women the vagina becomes moist and the vulva dilates.
Returning to the abnormal levels of libido, medicine usually relates a lack of sexual desire to some emotional disorder or a depressive condition. In particular, it is considered a symptom of depression , since the need to have sexual relations is closely linked to the survival instinct, the desire to live and prolong the existence of the species, ideas that generally appear inverted in the context. of clinical depression.
Freud and the libido
According to the studies of Sigmund Freud , the renowned Austrian doctor born in the mid-19th century, libido can be described as the energy of the drive or, better said, the affect linked to the transformation of drive energy , whose objective original is sexual. It is important to clarify that this objective can also be "desexualized" in a secondary way, after which there should be a commitment to channel this energy in another way.
For Freud, the mind is a system that achieves balance thanks to the opposition of forces called drives, which are in constant conflict. In other words, they are psychic energy that pushes us to behave in a certain way and that, when we achieve it, is discharged. In the internal dialectic of psychoanalysis, this energy is known precisely as libido.
Jung's gaze
Another figure that stands out in this framework is Carl Gustav Jung , a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who was a contemporary of Freud. His interpretation of libido was one of the points that led him to disagree with the Austrian psychologist, since he did not consider that it had a necessarily sexual character , but instead described it as an "undifferentiated psychic energy" not linked to a biological substrate. .
Jung's explanation of how this energy works is based on fundamental ideas from physics . For example, in the principle of opposites : it is about the conflict that takes place between opposite polarities, since without opposition there is no energy. Also of interest to him was the principle of equivalence , according to which energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but simply change form.