The driving forces (also ‘Implicit Motives) provide us with energy. When we talk about ourselves and say “it”, we usually mean this deepest level. If there is a primordial current, which Freud called “libido”, then the “it” divides into these four energy flows.

• Power: Being in charge and controlling the situation.

• Performance: learning and inspiring yourself.

• Contact: Integrate and empathize to enjoy being together.

• Freedom: Shaping life in a self-determined and self-responsible way.

Power: We should not suppress this power, but move forward in a healthy way. Security and assertion are necessary for this. Anyone who observes toddlers taking their first steps earnestly and tirelessly, falling down, getting up again, and again, and again, until they make safe progress, knows how positive this kind of power is. Power needs security and assertion, it is future-oriented, grasps the situation rather intuitively and strives for meaningful results.

Performance: Our performance instinct does not relate to other people. It is sufficient for itself. It begins at the latest after birth. We learn, try out, improve and are proud of the first sounds, the first steps or building blocks we put together and the first simple sentences we speak. Achievement needs cognition and recognition from self-reflection. It uses experiences, perceives situations accurately and thinks. It examines facts and processes as a basis for action.

Contact: It is simple. I open my senses to a person, try to perceive their needs, understand their thoughts and feelings, and begin to empathize with them. Happy relationships begin through the exchange of looks and grow without effort if we take the freedom to let them grow and not mix them with power or performance. The contact-drive uses empathy (empathy) and belonging. It is awake to the present, perceives the situation with feeling, and checks what emotions are triggered before acting.

Freedom: ‘It’ does not require much. Power, performance and contact are easy to live. They do not harm anyone, on the contrary. I shape my life within the limits of what the situation allows. So far, so good. If it weren’t for the simmas inside us that tell us what we must do or what we must not do. Freud called them the ‘superego’. Our freedom drive wants us to live self-determined lives, which also means taking responsibility for our actions into our own hands. We experience and learn what we need to live and that we are able to take good care of ourselves.