The Self-Preservation Instinct

The Self-Preservation instinct, as the name suggests, is related to survival. It is about making sure our most basic needs are met - ensuring we have food, a roof over our head, are warm, have enough resources - money to live on, energy to work with, that we look after ourselves physically. We all have the Self-Preservation instinct but for those people for whom it is the dominant instinct their focus in life is oriented towards these things. They think about food, temperature, having enough time, money, energy. They are oriented towards creating a home (their nest) which provides security and which they will work to make comfortable. They are interested in physical well-being and everything that goes along with it - diet, sleep, exercise.

When the instinct is functioning well with the personality and the personality is healthy, these people are earthy and practical and good at taking care of themselves in relation to all of the above needs. They will work hard to earn enough money, to be comfortable and secure in their physical environment and will know how to maintain it. They eat well, make sure they have enough sleep and get enough exercise and the whole functions and flows harmoniously. Less healthy people with Self-Preservation as their dominant instinct may become either obsessive about these aspects of their lives, or neglect them. They may become obsessive about food, for example, either eating too much or too little or neglectful or manic about exercise, either letting themselves go physically or over-exercising so that they bring on physical injuries.

If the Self-Preservation instinct is the least developed in an individual, they tend not to think about the concerns that we have talked about. They may not notice, for example, that they are hungry or that the room is warm or cold. It may not occur to them to pay attention to their resources let alone to organise them. They may, for example, not care much about money or material well-being and so be relatively unmotivated to achieve such things. Or they may not eat or sleep properly because they are simply focussed on other things.

The instincts dictate what we focus on - how we are oriented in life. Often we don't really know because the instinct is so deep-rooted and natural to us that we simply don't register it. It is what we have probably unconsciously defined to ourselves as 'normal'.