What is the death drive?

What is the death drive?
Posted on 23-03-2022

Death Drive is a Freudian concept that is part of his second topic and that coexists with the Life Drive.

For Freud, in this instance, the Death Instincts (Thanatos), and the Life Instincts (Eros) are intermingled in the psycheThe life drive tends toward union and bonding, and the death drive toward destruction, aggressiveness, and rupture. Drive demixing gives rise to a predominance of death drives, which always drive the living organism to its inert state.

Aggressiveness and destruction both towards oneself and towards others are drives that fall within the category of death drives.

If an individual lives, it is because there is a predominance of life drives, which precisely allow him to be linked to life, love, relate, work, study and carry out daily activities. The death instincts, however, are present and are manifested in aggressive or destructive impulses and in many behaviors that embody self-boycotts and repetition of situations that harm the individual and/or others.

The death drive seeks annihilation, the state of nirvana, immobility. To achieve this, he must pay attention to everything that involves the activation of the psychic apparatus. Seek to cease the tensions that are put into play in the psyche when carrying out all the tasks that connect us with life.

Its manifestation appears in aggressive behaviors, destructive ties, self-destruction, and pleasure present in the destruction itself. it is that which isolates the individual.

The death drive is constitutive of the psyche and is present in all of us. If we continue to live and we can perform in our bonds, it is because the life instinct is achieving, to a great extent, unity, and link. When the death drive, through drive demixing, takes on a relative role, more self-destructive behaviors occur and difficulty in sustaining that bond.

Freud links the death drive with the repetition compulsion. The latter is what leads us to unconsciously repeat certain traumatic or unresolved situations. It is what prevents us from getting out of certain vicious circles, always encountering the same problems, with people and experiences similar to those suffered previously.

The repetition compulsion leads us to face the same losses over and over again. This encounter with distressing situations cannot be consciously associated with previous situations. It is experienced as something absolutely new and current. That is why the analysis allows us to offer the appropriate space for this awareness to take place.

Traumatic experiences somehow leave a mark that is subsequently pursued unconsciously. Rediscovering it again in other places, through other people, but with the same imprint, and leaving the subject in the same position.

The death drive, as we said, is part of the psyche, it cannot be eliminated. On the contrary, as such, it fulfills its function: sometimes you need to destroy something in order to build something else. But it is important to work out where it is present in order to enable a balance with the impulses of life that allow the development of constructive vital aspects.

 

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