Is there an official term that describes ' the drive of an individual human being for self preservation'?

Eros (vs Thanatos)

Vapid, perhaps?

And eros more often than not, means “love.” Not sure if it’s really the best term here, unless you mean it in some sort of psychological term?

I’d call it “rationality.”

Survival Instinct.

“Smashing the State.”

You don’t have to believe me; look up “eros and thanatos”.

@dpworkin I have both a undergrad and graduate degree in Classical Humanities and I’ve just returned to the US from living in Greece for almost four years. It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just in my years studying these things, I never encountered “eros” to mean that, which is why I asked if there was a psychological term for it. It might be used or interpreted in a different way in which Classicists do, and since I know pretty much zilch about psychology, I was asking, and thought you might be able to educate me. Thanks so much for your educational and enlightening response.

survival of the fittest

Sorry, I didn’t mean to be brusque, I just didn’t have the energy to type up the whole theory. It is indeed at base a psychoanalytic theory.

The will to power.

@dpworkin Thank you. That’s all you really needed to say. I know we can’t all be self professed grumpy know-it-alls, but don’t brush everyone off so quickly. Some people genuinely want to learn. :)

I promise it was far more laziness than grumpiness.

@dpworkin Laziness is always an acceptable excuse for anything, in my book!

Grumpyman is right – and this is pretty good, not?

Eros and Thanatos.

I’m with @marinelife: survival instinct.

Self Preservation.

der Selbsterhaltungstrieb is the best way for me to condense it to one word. And yes, this notion has been specified by Freud in several of his books and articles from the early 1900’s. Freud speaks of the separation of the “eros libido” from the ego among many other things. The work of Freud has been widely discredited in more recent years but it’s still interesting reading, though quite verbose, especially in the original language.

I don’t think Freud’s seminal work has ever been the least bit discredited. The psychodynamics cannot be proven, and since the advent of good CBT are no longer really pertinent, except in New York, at the Psychoanalytic Institute, and a few other places, mostly for reasons of academic politics.

But no one doubts the existence of unconscious processes, no one doubts the phenomena of transference and counter-transference, I think the phenomena of resistance, displacement, projection, etc. are still widely accepted except in the strict Behaviorist community which itself has indeed been discredited. No one raises a child by Skinner’s principles any more that I know of.

I have always known it as “CYA”....cover your ass. I CYA every element and aspect of my life. Sprinkle in a little bit of “Be Prepared” and I am ready to survive almost anything.