Freud believed that there is a single list of innate drives that are common to all people and cannot be changed. The impulses compel one to act in the direction of certain objects without the participation of conscious reflection. They are a combination of two basic psychic «energies»: expansive (Eros) and destructive (Thanatos). These two energies, which Freud sometimes calls the «life instinct» and the «death instinct», try to realize themselves regardless of any external circumstances.
Freud described three types of innate drives:
- Drives of life (biological survival needs);
- Sexual drives (also biological, but not directly related to survival;
- Destructive drives (death drives).
The main motivational dominant of a person’s life is the desire to maximize the satisfaction of innate drives and at the same time minimize the punishment (external and internal) for this satisfaction.