Destrudo

Destrudo, or Destrado, in Freudian psychology, is the energy of the destructive impulse. It is the opposite of libido. While libido is the urge to create, an energy that arises from the Eros (or "life") drive, destrudo is the urge to destroy both oneself and everything else. According to Sigmund Freud, destrudo arises from the death drive (thanatos), which also is the source of aggression.

Destrudo is a lesser-known aspect of Freud's theory, and is usually ignored in place of better-known and better-defined theories of human emotion. Destrudo can be traced to Freud's attempt to explain the actions of soldiers in World War I. The term made its brief appearance in Freud's book The Ego and the Id (1923b), after which he abandoned its use.

See also

• Mortido
• Death instinct