Love And Happiness And Sigmund Freud's Theory Of Happiness

In Civilization and Its Discontents (Ch. 2), Sigmund Freud argues that happiness is routed in two basic ideas: the first having to do with no pain and the other having to do with pleasure. Along with his idea of what the root of happiness is, he also describes multiple ways this happiness can be attained. Freud states that love and beauty are both means of achieving happiness. Although love and beauty cannot completely prevent all worldly suffering, they both offer a powerful explanation that can help an individual determine the true meaning of their life. In this presentation, we will argue that this argument succeeds because true happiness is difficult to come by in this life, but things such as love and beauty provide a basis for passionate strife in an individual, while also causing an intoxicating kind of sensation that may lead to a definite meaning to Earthly existence for a human being.

Freud wrote that loving and being loved can be utilized to achieve a sense of true happiness and fulfilment in this life. He describes love as “a method that takes a firm hold of its objects and obtains happiness from an emotional relation to them” (p. 7). Freud also theorizes that love does not strive to avoid pain, but instead passionately attempts to reach a positive fulfillment of happiness. Freud specifically mentions sexual love, which “gives us our most intense experience of an overwhelming pleasurable sensation and so furnishes a prototype for our strivings after happiness” (p. 8). By placing love at the center of everything, happiness can easily be found, but at the same time love comes with a certain vulnerability within an individual and can make a person susceptible to a very painful amount of suffering