Libido

How relevant is the Freudian concept of Libido in contemporary psychoanalytic thought? While, on the one hand, libido as an active concept has gone out of favour, Roger Kennedy argues for its reinstatement at the heart of Freud’s legacy - but with a number of modifications. In particular, Libido as a concept for understanding the role and place of drives needs to be put into the context of both object relations and also the nature of the human subject. Roger Kennedy also examines Freud’s later concept of Eros as developing out of the earlier concept of libido, as well as looking at some of the links between Eros as Freud understood it and as was put forward in ancient thought.