The concept of the death drive: a clinical perspective. Review uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • This paper discusses Freud 's theory of the death drive in the light of clinical experience with severely self-destructive personality disorders, and contemporary object relations theory. Repetition compulsion, sadism and masochism, negative therapeutic reaction, suicide in depressed and in non-depressed patients, and destructive group processes are explored from this perspective. The paper concludes that the concept of the death drive is clinically relevant, but that this condition needs to be traced to the general dominance of aggressive affects as the primary etiological factor; only under severely pathological circumstances does this dominance lead to a focused drive to self-destruct.

publication date

  • October 1, 2009

Research

keywords

  • Aggression
  • Attitude to Death
  • Drive
  • Freudian Theory

Identity

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 70349920952

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00187.x

PubMed ID

  • 19821849

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 90

issue

  • 5