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In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive (‹See Tfd›German: Todestrieb) is the drive toward death and destruction, often expressed through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness.[1][2] It was originally proposed by Sabina Spielrein in her paper "Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being"[3][4] (Die Destruktion als Ursache des Werdens)[5] in 1912, which was then taken up by Sigmund Freud in 1920 in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. This concept has been translated as "opposition between the ego or death instincts and the sexual or life instincts".[6] In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud used the plural "death drives" (Todestriebe) much more frequently than the singular.[7]
The death drive opposes Eros, the tendency toward survival, propagation, sex, and other creative, life-producing drives. The death drive is sometimes referred to as Thanatos in post-Freudian thought (in reference to the Greek personification of death), complementing "Eros", although this term was not used in Freud's own work, being rather introduced by Wilhelm Stekel in 1909 and then by Paul Federn in the present context.[8][9] Subsequent psychoanalysts such as Jacques Lacan and Melanie Klein have defended the concept.
Segal
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).It is a little odd that Freud himself never, except in conversation, used for the death instinct the term Thanatos, one which has become so popular since. At first he used the terms "death instinct" and "destructive instinct" indiscriminately, alternating between them, but in his discussion with Einstein about war he made the distinction that the former is directed against the self and the latter, derived from it, is directed outward. Stekel had in 1909 used the word Thanatos to signify a death-wish, but it was Federn who introduced it in the present context.