FREUDIAN psychological reality begins withthe world, full of objects. Among them is a veryspecial object, the organism. The organism isspecial in that it acts to survive and reproduce,and it is guided toward those ends by its needs--hunger, thirst, the avoidance of pain, and sex.
A part--a very important part--of theorganism is the nervous system, which has as oneof its characteristics a sensitivity to theorganism's needs. At birth, that nervous systemis little more than that of any other animal, an"it" or id. The nervous system, as id, translatesthe organism's needs into motivational forcescalled, in German, Triebe, which has beentranslated as instincts or drives. Freud also calledthem wishes. This translation from need to wishis called the primary process.
