Archetypal Primal Desires exist at the very deepest level within our psyche. They account for our fundamental drives and impulses. There are lots of different labels which are equivalent and sometimes interchangeable
- needs,
- motivations,
- wants
We have chosen to use the term Primal Desires because this reflects the instinctive,
impulsive ‘must have’ nature of these forces. Primal Desires are
directional and activational. They are the ‘magic’ ingredient
that forces movement and action.
Goal Oriented
Different desires certainly seem to have emotions which are commonly associated with them, but it would be incorrect to say that emotions are the drivers. Emotions do not necessarily have a search and find, goal orientation associated with them, Primal Desires do. Specific behaviour though can be driven by many different primal desires, for example sex can be driven by the desire for power, the desire for physical pleasure, the desire to experience the inherent vitality of life or from a desire for intimacy.
Character Forming
Finally, aspects of personality could be said to reflect the primal desires that you find yourself using the most – as if we had favourites. The ones we trust more than others become familiar to us – a part of our character and then there are those we rarely go anywhere near….
Oppositional Forces
These primal desires run across cultures, are classless and are common to both sexes but as most of us know often our desires can be in conflict with each other – they are oppositional. We have coded these desires into 8 groups or families, they form 4 pairs of opposites.
- The desire for pleasure and the desire for control
- The desire for power and the desire for intimacy
- The desire for exploration and the desire for safety and security
- The desire for individual achievement and the desire for social/group acceptance
Our learning has been that very strong brands occupy ‘mythical’ spaces because they embody and hold the tension between these oppositional forces. In the abstract world in which brand meaning exists they are able to do things which would be hard or impossible to do in the ‘real’ world – by so doing they provide us with a relief from the psychological tension which exists when our desires conflict. The more a brand satisfies this kind of tension the more powerful it appears to be.
