Psychical inertia
Concept in psychotherapy
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Freudian and other developments
Freud argued that such psychic inertia played a part in the lives of the normal, as well as of the neurotic,[2] and saw its origins in fixation between early instincts and their first impressions of significant objects.[3] As late as Civilization and its Discontents, he considered as a major obstacle to cultural development "the inertia of the libido, its disinclination to give up an old position for a new one".[4]
Later Jungians have seen psychic inertia as a force of nature reflecting both internal and outer determinants;[5] while others have seen it as a product of social pressures, especially in relation to ageing.[6]
