For Freud, existence represents a constant struggle to find equilibrium between contradictory biological drives, the need to destroy, flee, or fight, on the one hand, and the need to love, to approach, or to be near on the other. Freud organized his understanding of these drives in a theoretical structure having two outward expressions-libido and mortido. He believed that human agitation and distress are symptoms of a hormonal imbalance, an imbalance between the adrenal and gonadal systems. The hungers discussed here are libidal, not necessarily sexual drives. They represent the human need for community, the need for acceptance, and the need to approach.
Every human exchange adds to stability or homeostasis.
Each human contact creates partial equilibrium. A group participant, experiencing an emotional explosion, may leave as appeased as one who leaves happy and full of human warmth. In many cases, an encounter may fill both the need to approach and the need to fight, reject, or flee at the same time. A recognition of primary psychic hungers may make it possible for a confederate to evaluate the effects of any given action in terms of its ability to satisfy the needs of others. We speculate that this knowledge will make it more likely that one can learn to pacify human hungers in a life affirming way.