Will to Live

The will to live is a psychological force to fight for survival seen as an important and active process of conscious and unconscious reasoning. This occurs particularly when one’s own life is threatened by a serious injury or disease. The idea in which someone who is on the threshold of death may consciously or unconsciously try to stay alive through the belief that they have a reason or something to live for, along with giving up on the will to live. There are significant correlations between the will to live and existential, psychological, social, and physical sources of distress. The concept of the will to live can be seen as directly impacted by hope. Many, who overcome near-death experiences with no explanation, have described concepts such as the will to live as a direct component of their survival. The difference between the wish to die versus the wish to live is also a unique risk factor for suicide.

The will to live is considered to be a very basic drive in humans; but not necessarily the main driving force. In psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud termed the pleasure principle, which is the seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain.Viktor Frankl, after spending time in a German concentration camp, developed psychotherapy called logotherapy, or the will to meaning. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs highlights the innate appetite that people possess for love and belonging but before all this there is the very basic and powerful will to live. Psychologists have established that human beings are a goal-oriented species. In assessing the will to live, it should be borne in mind that it could be augmented or diminished by the relative strength of other simultaneously existent drives. Psychologists generally agree that there is the will to live, the will to pleasure, the will to superiority and the will to connection. There are also usually varying degrees of curiosity with regard to what may be termed the will to identity or establishing meaningful personal responses. The will to live is a platform without which it would not be possible to satisfy the other drives.

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