Drive Positions. (Positions pulsionnelles)
By Karl Louvet.
(Translation 07 03 06 by Leo ‘Berlips. Ed: >www.szondiforum.org<)
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Introduction:
The following is a translation of an article by Louvet in which he describes how the Drive Circuit theory with success can be used for a more detailed and deeper interpretation of individual factors, depending on their rank inside of their vector. Louvet succeeded even to use this approach to explain the interrelationship inside some of the ambivalent factors. He demonstrates this by a “step by step” analysis of the (k+) and (k-) dynamics, inside of the (k ±). This is also true for his example of the (m ±) reaction and other factor positions. 

Characteristic for Karl is that he illustrates his conclusions with concrete examples in a very picturesque way. As a former test psychologist, who in the sixties and seventies often had to interpret test material of people living in other parts of Sweden by blind diagnostic, I really enjoyed myself to read Louvets subtle interpretations. 

I think that e.g. his example of “obsession” mentioned in this article with success can be used in teaching of how to use the Szondi test.
 
Like usually translation also this is by me in a very liberal manner is done. Sometimes I had effort with the translation and then took I freedom to put Karl some personlijke interpretations resp notes text. That becomes aangegeen by the symbols: /…./Refer that then then to a personal subjective interpretation of some wrapped key words and must I therefore entirely the responsibility for all take which are gone wrong. Moreover I must adopt that after fifty years the text live sometimes in Sweden, however, what can ver-zweedse be. I count however with your tolerantie since I am no professional translator. 
Leo Berlips, editor > www.szondiforum.org <

Content:
 (k ±)	page  3 	
(m±)	 6	
(h± s±)
	13	
(k± p+) and (k± p-)
	13	
d+ m+	15

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Instinctual position (k ±) by Karl Louvet.

The factor (k) and the shaping of the sensoric aspect.
It seemed possible to me to more specifically approach the factor (k) according to its sensoric function (mise en forme sensorielle), more specific when it is used in the service of the individual (subject), as shown in (k+), or when used in the service of  the group in the form (k-).

 Usually mainly creative persons give us the possibility to understand easily the application of the formal rules for personal use as shown by (k+). In contrast to them our education made us oversensitive when using the sensoric function (k-) in the use of a group and its standards: “One does not say these things in the home of the Jones”… , Behave correctly, … You  have not yet  the age to look at this TV program… ”. 

In (k+), reality is the object of the sensoric form as shaped by the subject, that means that it is based on his own experience and according to his ideas. Instead in (k-) it is rather the subject who is the object of a reality to which he must adept.   In (k+), the subject explores reality to shape a personal setting in the  world which surrounds him and which is made specific to his way of seeing, his  customs etc. He creates, adapts and transforms to reproduce a reality according to his needs.

Instead in (k-) it is mainly the subject who is the object of the reality to which he has to conform. In (k+) the person explores reality in order to collect his own baggage from the world that is around him, and that corresponds to his way of seeing, to his taste, and his habits. He creates, adapts and transforms in order to shape a reality according to his needs.

 In (k-) it concerns the strict adaptation to reality. This adaptation is done  because the subject subordinates his own experience and dedicates the use of his  interests to the interests of community. He “withdraws” his libido away from his own way of looking at the world (his vision of his environment) in order to strengthen the community’s  way of interpreting. It is  characteristic of that what one calls sense of reality.

  In short: in (k+), it is the subject´s experience which gets priority, whereas in (k-) it is the experience of the group that precedes.
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What happens in k±?

The method Mathieu 22, 21 explores the possibilities of the way the factors overlap, seen from the perspective of the logical hierarchy of the circuit. Thus, according to this reasoning, what happens in (k-) is that one has made one developmental step more in relation to the (k+), (From level 1. p- to 2. k+ to 3k- to 4. p+. ed.) In other words, the way of action of the (k+) is encapsulated in the access to what happens on the level of (k-). Indeed, the higher logical level, as shown by (k-) dictates thus the finality of the (k±): the conformity to reality. But with (k±), this passes through the (k+). What will this mean? 

In (k±), the subject decides what is reality according to his personal experience. He knows reality better than the others.
It is typically for what we call a “professional deformation”: The subject has a personal experience (k+) that gives him the impression that he knows better than the others how to guarantee the concordance with reality.

Let us see the case of the hooligan and the police officer. The hooligan Roger is a small scale robber. He is accustomed to deceive, to make shadowy deals. His rules, are those of his daily life, of he environment in which he evolved for good or worse. He made his own experience and earned not badly money lately. Thus, he bought a superb motor bike, powerful, exactly as he wanted, not as the scrap which he used lately. He is proud and it is very happy. It is parked in front of the house where he lives as he does not have a garage and his apartment is located at the side of the garden. After he brought back his motor bike, he is despairingly anxious; he will look constantly out of the window of the corridor which is next to the street. Just to see whether all is well. He has a good trained  imagination. He knows all the tricks to steal a motor bike like his, rapid and effective. It are the tricks of the pros who pass through his head. He knows also the district. In short he will see for the tenth time his beautiful motor bike, as soon as he  hears an engine which makes an abnormally noise. As soon as it started to get dark, even if only half an hour has gone since he was there. … In short, Roger has got an “obession” in relation to his motor bike. He “knows very well” what is the reality of the street, one can in vain tell him to remain quiet, he laughs, “if you only did known how things happen”… His experience mediates the access to reality because he thinks that his experience is more adequate than that of common sense to supervise his motorized machine Phallus. The common sense  in him does not has the force to castrate (limit) the experience of Roger. His vision of things is stronger even if he knows that everyone is not a thief like him, but that is not enough, he must check to be sure. It is too important this motor bike, it is a narcissistic object, central for his personal image.  His obsession translates the “one way and return” ticket between the validation of reality and its mediatization by the intimate experience of the subject. It is the checking function of the (k±) which oscillates in a loop between the attraction of the narcissistic object and the risk to lose it.

(Another example): The police officer Arthur is a skilful inspector who has just stopped a ciminal young person,  called Roger. Since three hours he “works him through ” in connection with an armed robbery made in the area lately. Roger corresponds to be a good suspect for this business. For Arthur much is at play in this business, there is a promotion in sight in the service. Sure of his experience, Arthur “knows better than anyone” with whom he deals and he intends to prove it. Thus he is obsessed with Roger, question about question follow each other until he cracks. “Reality, is to make him say what one wants”, Arthur knows much about how to do this, it is not his first police interrogation. In fact, it is his experience which at risk in front of his colleagues who would rather tend to pass to another suspect. Although Roger declares in vain that he is innocent and submissively answers the questions, nothing helps, the police officer keeps to his bait because he “is convinced” of his culpability.

 In short the (k±) will intervene each time when a person  “knows better” than the other what reality is, in other words when the question of the veracity of reality is at stake in connection with something of importance in the eyes of this person. For them, it is not a question “to image personal ideas ” in their head, they will undoubtedly say to you that their perspicacity is connected to the maximum with their capacity on this question of truth.
If we must refer to an anguish, it would be the fear of losing something of importance, something that one estimates and until now is in our possession or in our range.  In fact, as soon as the experience of the subject appears more convincing to him than that of common sense he will engage the function of checking  (k±) “to be sure” until the end, to be right more than the others. If the reason for this reaction is a “beautiful object” highly valuated in the narcissistic economy of the subject, then appears a stubbornness ensured against all blows. In order that the subject avoids entering this torment of the checking of reality according to his own experience, he needs a well founded and stable (k-), a (k-) that imposes the idea to the person  that people are not like him and that his vision of  everything is deformed by a way of giving too much attention to things with the risk to become stupid about it.

Therefore, the torment (k±) is caused either because the (k-) is unstable, or because the reason is really invaluable as seen with the eyes of the person who will prefer to check three times rather than one; or the two characteristics at the same time.

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(m±)
With a (m±), I suggest “a need for contact (m+) in the service of a need to rupture a contact (m-)”.

It is what occurs when one set up a kind of contact ritual with the intention to start a definitive rupture when the latter is difficult to realize abruptly. For example, the girl who decides to leave the family bosom says to her mother: “I move because I became adult, it is necessary that I learn how to live my life  apart from the family. In any event, I am not far, I move to the street aside, and will visit you every Sunday, and with the mobil telephone I offered you a month ago I am not lost out of sight.
The (m±) will be active each time when a form of contact is intercalated as a transitional ritual within the framework of a rupture of contact that is badly assumed or not easily accepted.

If the (m+) increases its influence, there is an unpleasant feeling because the people too often see each other. If the share of the (m-) increases, there is bad feeling because of the feeling of abandonment or indifference, which comes to undermine the relation.

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To consider the tritendancies with the (k±)

Two possibilities: (k± p+) and (k± p-).

With (k± p+): the influence of the (p+) dominates the others because it is the highest in the hierarchy of the circuit. The (p+) represents value systems which register the subject in a historical temporal continuity and the combination with (k±) is in the service of this Cause, by holding strict account that (k-) does not have any more precedence over the (k+) since the absolute power is moved onto the (p+) thus removing from the (k-) its possibility to frame the (k+). We thus have thus (k+) and (k-) in their original form  (condition objectale) as  support or mediator in the service of the (p+):

The actual (object) condition of the (k+): is the outcome of the subject´s experience and a reflection of the support for the (p+) project. It is something like a personal luggage that  distinguishes itself from the common collective thought, following our specific sensory working through of our personal vision of the World. In other words one does not see all the same thing at the same time, even if we are in presence with another person.

 This difference is the result of a very personal mnemic-trace, the result of the selected sensory interpretation of the “environment” (I do not employ the word “reality” to mark a difference with the common sense.). The (k+) is the  guarantee for the existence and maintenance of this mnemic-trace. The actual quality (object condition) of the (k+) means here the experience of the subject in the service of the (p+), neither more nor less than the share of (k-). In the absence of (k+p0), it cannot be question of the Almighty narcissism.

Two types of formatting.

The Ego has as a function to shape (design) the libido, it inserts it in a formal process, it holds it in a form, it takes form while crossing the Ego. This creates initially a specific form that is (reflecting) itself, work of ipseity, logic of a homogenèse. After this the libido can be formatted well beyond the Ego that becomes a servant in stakes higher than its ipseity. In this process of formatting, it seemed to me sensible since my experience with creative persons to specify that there are two types of formatting:

The factor (k) deals with the sensory aspect, while the factor (p) deals with  representations, not forgetting that the sensory aspects make the support for the representational and vice versa:

The formatting of the factor (k) is a sensoric formatting : The Ego organizes its perception according to a grid of personal interpretation. It makes its own language, its threshold of pain and of resistance, its appetites, etc. When (k-)  arrives, a sensory formatting takes place, but in the service of the group. It is typically the case of the military service: to change one´s own speech, to change one´s pain threshold, to modulate one´s appetites, etc. The factor (k) is thus proposed here as a way to modify our sensations either as private (k+) or collective (k-) perception.

The formatting of the (p) factor concerns the representations. Once the grid of sensory interpretation of the subject is established in the factor (k), the factor (p) comes to modulate the associations of ideas and images resulting from this grid of interpretation and formats a representation either for private (p+) or collective (p-) use.
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Eve in paradise

To give an evaluation of the passage of (p-) towards the (k+), let us turn towards the original sin. When Eve is confronted with the desire of absolute power suggested by the Snake, we are in the presence of the birth of a personal outlook which breaks the filiation with the system. God said that one did not ought to touch the tree which belongs to the paradise environment: One may look at this tree from the right-hand side, from the left, from the bottom to top but, don’t touch! The Filiation is at this price: notwithstanding the way in which you look (carry your glance), it will not be taken into “account” in order to preserve the absolute power established at the origin apart from any personal way of looking (glance).

When Eve decides to transgress, she does so using a personal sensory form which henceforth from now on will decide the judgment of good and evil. The absolute power falls under the sensoriality of Eve, in the way how she uses her senses  (her vision of the paradise) and how she decides by herself and in herself her own destination system: at the price of the judgment of the good and evil. It breaks with the destination implanted in the original system - the word of God:
“The woman thus considered that the fruit of this tree was good to be eaten ; that it was  beautiful and pleasant to see.” (The Holy Bible, Lemaistre De Sacy, page 3, 3-6, volume I).

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Instead of being an objectal support for a filiation (p-),  her sensoric formatting  henceforth becomes the true subject of a filiation with her self (k+): it is the judgment of good and evil starting from her own sensory condition. xxx
 She made a con-sideration, that struck the continuity system and diverted it from its first involvement  by turning  the whole system towards a new original focus.

The absolute power //as represented by (p+) ed// carries out this consideration because the absolute power is a principle of the destination in itself. It is always a consideration which results from the stop of the universal flow: a fascination, a passion, a catatonia, a perverse scenario, a nonhistorical static temporality. All the weight of the filiation´s legimity with a system will rest from now on the sensoric formatting specific to the subject. This absolute power in the sensoric formatting engages a new way of looking with a new value. 
“At the same time their eyes were opened to both of them” (the Holy Bible, Lemaistre De Sacy, page 3, 3-7, volume I)

A new way of looking, a new legitimacy, another filiation. In other words the “subject (k+)” depends from now on his/her own vision of the world to legitimate herself and of nothing else. The grid of sensoric interpretation of the “subject (k+)” is necessarily a foundation for its legitimacy. (S)he is obliged to see the things in her/his way, (s)he does not have any more the choice if not it is the Fall. 

That explains the perverse tenacity to cling to one´s vision of things: the sensoric is the basic lever of the subjective quality whereas for a subject (p -), it is the last of its concerns.
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Common sense (k-) and common representations (p-)
xxx
Thus the common sense of (k-) is a way of seeing, hearing, of feeling one´s body, of feeding one self,… according to a strictly normative use defined by common sense,  while the factor (p-) indicates the luggage of the collective representations. For example, the fact of liking and of choosing the red color for one´s mourning dress could be of the (k+) type because it is the color of blood - that of the fundamental bond, because  it is as such the subject sees the world “with its heart”. But with 
(k-) one does not put such conspicuous colours (in the West ed.) and one chooses dark tones like “conventional”  black or blue marinades, for a burial. Another example, if a subject seriously can consider his whole life as the design of a water engine in (p+), in (p-) everyone will be able to say to you that such water engines do not exist.
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Ambivalent orientation of the (k± p-) and the (k± p+). 

Within the framework of the (k± p-), it is the factor (k-) which carries out the dance by imposing the stake (depending on. ed)  the adequacy with the common standards of reality sense (cf. the parameter “Popular or V” in the test of Rorschach). As a support of this checking, two possibilities are offered to the subject: the (k+) and (p-). The choice of these factors translates the approval of the subject for (k+) and (p-) without one dominating over the other. All will depend on the reason for the checking (k-) according to the considered perspectives  (k+ and/or p-). For example, there has been a time one time ago when the majority of people considered that the place of a woman was at home in the kitchen as a family mother. Imagine two theoretical possibilities for a woman of this time who wonders about her female condition by making (k± p-):

If the personal experience of the (k+) confirms the collective 
(p-) opinion, the result of the (k± p-) is that the adequate place of a woman at that time is to be a mother in the kitchen, that is “her reality”.

If her (k+) denies the common opinion and asserts a quite other personal experience  which has nothing to do with the primacy of the statute of the housewife, she is stuck  between two fires: at one side the collective majority opinion, and at the other her  own experience which sometimes diverges completely. Consequently the checking (k-) can not decide since the supports (k+ and p- ed) by which the function of ego adaptation goes through do not make it possible to take a unanimous decision. The approval of ego legalist is paradoxical in itself. The legalist condition of the ego is blocked in a contradiction: there is a stand still, the libido oscillates between two visions of the world. It is an ambivalence even a dilemma. Because the emergence of the (k+) has a tendency to break the collective participation, one has to expect a difference in vieuw between the (k+) and (p-) even when these two factors are in a objective (original)  condition. 

With an Ego (k± p-), it is probable that the access to the common law standard is compromised (with a possibility of a limitation, castration and a less efficient symbolic system) and that the adaptation of the subject to reality becomes indecisive.

Indeed, even if the (k+) provides the subject with a significant experience, it should not be forgotten that the iconoclast principle of (k-) plays against the subject. The orientation (k-)  is more favorable in its principle regarding to support (p-) than to support (k+). 

One will have to expect problems in the event of strong personalities with a rich person luggage (k+) vis-a-vis tough cultural stereotypes within a framework where the adaptation of the Ego takes precedence over its own will. The case of the woman who wonders about her will to make a career at an age where she might be mother is typical, especially if the culture in which she is embedded is insidiously repressive with the principle of woman emancipation. Tormented by this question, she is likely to remain in an indecisive status: neither the promising professional career nor a happy maternity. Under these conditions, the reaction (k± p-) can cause the withdrawal, the “escape” and cause the idea to have lost something of importance. Anyhow, that does not seem to me specific as an anxiety, this kind of existential stress is present in everyone, it is enough to listen to the discussions of people to find it.

Lastly, before passing to the (k± p+), it is judicious to remember that the (k+) and the (p-) in the (k-) Ego can put in scene two different existential methods:

a.    the (k+) allows the person to have a clear identity without necessarily resorting to the question of the direction, “it is so he sees things”. That the others do not see the same thing as he does not disturb him deeply. The filiation is not the criterion of legitimacy, it is “as he feels it” before any other consideration. The grid of personal sensoric interpretation has priority over the question of the sense included in the common representations.

b.     the (p-) gives a legitimacy via a participation in the  representations which form sense and are the established answers to existential questions. The personal vision of people one makes fun of, their way of seeing is not welcome, quite the opposite. The answers are there, no need “to see”, “to reflect”, “to have one´s own vision of things”. One only has “to take part, that is enough”. The stake is to to bind the representation with the question of common sense once and for always, and not to decode reality according to a grid of (personal) sensory reading. The common representation aligns the grid of sensory interpretation of the subject on the normative representation. 

This difference in nature between the two processes can explain that there are two types of speeches of the  (k± p-) person, two speeches which do not agree because they are not on the same logical level, in spite of the fact that these two speeches are in the service of the adaptation to reality: 

One is based on the principle of the filiation with  the representations (p-), the other is based on the principle of “my body belong to me and I see what I see as I am what I am”. This is not the case with (k± p+): the bottom of the (k+) speech is of comparable nature with that of the speech (k-) but directed in another way.

In the case with the (k± p+), it is the (p+) which carries out the dance. Within this framework two sensory interpretation grids are either harmonized or not, to validate the project of the Almighty (p+) /the verb “to validate” means to adapt to the (p+) project). The (p+) “knows where is the direction”, it gives which sense to give to the question which direction to give to the representations. The  factors (k+) and (k-) are only its adjutants:
-	the personal experience in (k+) and/or
-	the experience of the others in (k-) ( meaning of the way of looking at things, sensory experience).

Either the way of seeing (k+) joints the way of seeing (k-) and the subject skilfully carves his vision of the things to feed the (p+) project; or the sensory vision of (k+) diverges from that of (k-) and the ambivalence between the two equal forces are in a their object (original) condition. That can go from hesitation to indecision while passing by various degrees of personal criticism. The range of the interactions between (k+) and (k-) is broad.
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  (h± s±)

The result (Sh± s±) in the Sexual vector of the test would show  the mechanism of putting limits on the child (symbolic castration) (cf “Analysis of little Gilles in the files”).
  
This (S± ±) reaction is located before anything else within the framework of (h-), since this factor dominates the logic of the sexual circuit. (because h- is the highest development of the factor dynamics in this vector. ed). The (h+, step 1, the starting point ed.) which expresses the erogeneity of the child is thus in the service of (h-) In other words, the erogeneity obeys abstract stakes. Moreover is the (s-, step 2. ed.) in the service of the (s+). That means that the phantasm obeys the logic of the object, it must take account of the object and what for the object is valuable /des enjeux reels, the real stakes/.

If we locate the mother like the coveted object, the child cannot any more make images /in the meaning of the greek word: phantazein. Ed/ in his own way and in the service of his own erogeneity (h+ s+). It must subject its libido to such values as exist “outside” of the will of the child (s+): It cannot  make images his adherence to his mother as he wants and enjoy it in his own way. Abstract values (h-) reign the whole and oblige the libido to pas through a logical support, correspondent to a legalistic-realistic-adaptive value. (s+).   

This mediation, of the erogeneity (h+) and the phantasms which could capture it (s-), by a logically higher framework devoted to external values outside of the child (h- s+), would make it possible to see the instantaneous action  of setting up of certain limits (symbolic castration) to the child’s psychism.  

In any case , this interpretation nevertheless poses the higher importance of (s+) /development level 3/ over (s-level 2) but, the absolute power is in (h-) /highest level/.  This is because (s+) has no authority, since the absolute power does not belong to this factor any more. The question consequently is (s+) as much worth as (s-)? The question of the hierarchisation of several intermediate positions in the circuit under the aegis of a limiting activity (symbolic castration position remains to question. 

The absolute power lies in the (h-), that will say in the possibility that its appearance will tally the other reactions and /because/ the other positions of the circuit are all in an object status owing to the fact that they do not have any more absolute power. Although being object positions within the framework of (h-), the intermediate positions comprise, in my opinion, a hierarchisation between them, but under the aegis of factor (h-) of course. How to explain this hierarchy?
  
Among the objects which surround us, some are of more importance than others according to the point of view of the subject. For example, at the second developmental stage  (PP2), the objects which médiate best the narcissistic valorization will be regarded as more important than the others, especially because they médiate best the access to the structural condition of the narcissistic absolute power. This idea of a hierarchy starting from /(based on/) the mediating value of an intermediate position towards the access to absolute power makes it possible to pose hierarchical levels within the circuit, even with positions under object statute. 

If the key of the (h± s±) is (h-), the intermediate positions which support this position as well as possible the fourth circuit will be better mediators than the other positions. In fact, the position which appears right before (h-) is the one that  mediate best the access to the problems of (h-). Thus, even in object condition, the (s+) preserves its first place (over the s- and the h+) due to its greater faculty to mediate the problematic of  (h-)

 The hiérarchisaton of the intermediate positions is thus possible even in object condition with this criterion of mediatization. Compared to the (h+), (s-)  is ontogenetically closer to (h-) according to the logic of the circuit. It mediates thus better the access to (h-) than the position (h+), which seems obvious. 

We thus find in this double overlap (h± s±), the hierarchy of the circuit: [h- with s+ > s- > h+], according to the vieuwpoint of an access to an absolute power residing in (h-).
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d+ m+

In (d+ m+), the contact  (m+) is in the service of the detachment (d+). What is a detachment mediated by a contact? Since the factor (m) is anobjectal (pre-objectal), there is a common point between the (m+) and the (d+): the lifting of the object investments. It would mean a detachment which transits by a sensational logic (feelings). Perhaps should it be understood by this that the subject consumes the situations which it meets by denying the possibility of finding an object there. “It only passes away”, “super environment” but without object to be invested, without a durable reality object. An environment of type “holidays” as when one knows that that it will not last and that what counts, it is to live feelings, as much as possible, “to change the ideas”… and the objects, especially thanks to a contact (m+) which mediates the lifting of the object (d+): By practising sensory consumption in the service of the  process anobjectality of the (d+), the subject denies any possibility of a durable object investment. “That does not take”. “It is only for fun”.
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(d + m -)
It is the position (m-) which tallies the (d+). Thus, the detachment (d+) is with the service of the rupture (m-). The (d+) unties the nodes, breaks the fasteners, désarrime the libido. The absolute power in (m-), means the rupture of the bonds as the principal value in the Contact vector and it is mediated by a detachment (d+). A (d 0) would be less effective because the (d+) adds really a procedure to give punch to the (m-), it is like a blow of chisel. The (m-) is meditated by the (d+) (in object condition = like support of the stake (m-) or, in other words, in position of object with respect to the m-) i.e. it is about a (d+) in the meaning of a departure, or in the meaning of putting distance and to pose a gap in the contact. The (d+) in object condition is what makes it possible to measure that that is detached. The detachment (d+) comes here to give all the m
extend of the rupture (m-)
Finish Article: Drive Positions. (Positions pulsionnelles)
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