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==Death Drive and Sigmund Freud ==The [[death driveSigmund Freud|Freud]] (French: ''introduced the [[pulsion de mortconcept]]'') is first elaborated by of the [[Sigmund Freuddeath drive]] in ''[[Beyond the Pleasure Principle]]'' (1920).Here [[Freud]] posits a basic opposition between the [[life drive]] (''[[Lebestriebe]]'' or ''[[Eros]]'') and the [[death drive]] (''[[Todestriebe]]'' or ''[[Thanatos]]'').The former is concerned with the creation of cohesion and unity; the latter with the undoing of connections and the destruction of unity.According to [[Freud]], the [[death drive]] exhibits the tendency of all living beings to return to an inorganic state.All drives are regressive in that they seek to return to an earlier state or to recover a lost [[object]].Initially inward-directed, the death drive first manifests its existence in the human tendency to self-destruction; as it subsequently turns to the outside world, it takes the form of [[aggressivity|aggressive]] or destructive behavior.

The theory of the Here he established a fundamental opposition between [[death drive is, by Freud|life drive]]s (''s own admission, speculative, and is grounded in the ddescriptions of the [[compulsion to repeateros]].The fact that Freucd describes the death drive as 'silent' makes it difficult to supply concrete clinical evidence for its existence and the notion remains controversal), even though Freud continues to uphold it in his very last writings.Many post-Freudian analysts dismiss the notion conceived of as a death drive as mere speculation on Freud's part, but Klein adopts it whole-heartedly, regarding the tyranny of the early tendency towards [[superegocohesion]] as it crushes the young child's and [[egounity]] as the first clinical manifestation of its power.(The concept of , and the [[death drive was one of ]]s, which operate in the most controversial concepts introduced by Freudopposite direction, [[undoing]] connections and many of his disciples rejected it, but Freud continued to reaffirm the concept for the rest of his life. Of the non-Lacanian schools of psychoanalytic theory, only Kleinian psychoanalysis takes the concept seriouslydestroying things.)

==Death Drive and Lacan==The concept of the [[Jacques Lacandeath drive]] (following Freud) reaffirms the concept was one of the most controversial [[death drive:category:concepts|concepts]] as central to introduced by [[psychoanalysisFreud]]. , and many of his disciples rejected it, but [[LacanFreud]] wrote: "continued to ignore reaffirm the concept for the death instinct in rest of his [Freud's[life]] doctrine is to misunderstand that doctrine entirely."<ref>E, 301</ref>

In 1938, ==Jacques Lacan=====Psychoanalysis===[[Lacan]] describes the follows [[death driveFreud]] as a [[nostalgia]] for a [[lost harmony]], a [[desire]] to [[return]] to in reaffirming the [[preoedipal]] fusion with the [[mother]]'s [[breast]], the [[loss]] concept of which is marked on the [[psychedeath drive]] in the as central to [[weaning complexpsychoanalysis]].<ref>Lacan, 1938: 35</ref>In 1946, [[Lacan]] associates the [[death drive]] with the [[suicide|suicidal tendency]] of [[narcissism]].<refblockquote>Ec, 186</ref>In the 1950s, [[Lacan]] does not situate "To ignore the [[death driveinstinct]] in the his [[imaginary]] (despite its association with the [[preoedipal phase]] and [[narcissism]]), but rather in the [[symbolic]].In the 1954-5 seminar, ''[[The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis]]'', Lacan states that the [[death drivedoctrine]] is simply the fundamental tendency of the [[symbolic]] [[order]] to produce [[repetition]]misunderstand that doctrine entirely."The death instinct is only the mask of the symbolic order<ref>{{E}} p."301</ref>S2, 326</refblockquote>

==Death Drive and Biology=Nostalgia===For Freud, In [[Lacan]]'s first remarks on the [[death drive]] was closely bound up with , in 1938, he describes it as a [[nostalgia]] for a [[biologypreoedipal|lost harmony]]., a [[Lacandesire]] situates the to [[death drivereturn]] in to the [[symbolicpreoedipal|preoedipal fusion]].with the [[Lacanmother]] articulates it with culture rather than nature.'s [[Lacanbreast]] states that , the death drive "is not a question of biology."<ref>E, 102</ref> The [[death drivecastration|loss]] of which is not marked on the [[biology|biologicalpsyche]] in the [[instinctcomplex|weaning complex]] to return to the inanimate.<ref>S7, 211-12{{1938}} p. 35</ref>

==Death Drive and Drives=Narcissism===Another difference between Lacan's concept of the death drive and Freud's emerges in 1964.Freud opposed the death drive to the sexual drives.In 1946 he [[Lacanlinks]] rejects Freud's thesis of a duality of life and death drives.[[Lacan]] argues that the [[death drive]] is an aspect of every to the [[drivenarcissism|suicidal tendency]].The [[death drive]] is an aspect of every [[drivenarcissism]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 186</ref>.

"The distinction between By linking the life [[death drive ]] with the [[preoedipal phase]] and with [[narcissism]], these early remarks would [[place]] the [[death drive is - true ]] in as much as it manifests two aspects of what [[Lacan]] later comes to call the drive[[imaginary order]]."<ref>gl 20</ref>

===Symbolic Order===However, when [[Lacan]] writes begins to develop his concept of the [[order|three orders]] of [[imaginary]], [[symbolic]] and [[real]], in the 1950s, he does not situate the [[death drive]] in the [[imaginary]] but in the [[symbolic]].  ===Repetition===In the [[seminar]] of 1954-5, for example, he argues that the [[death drive]] is simply the fundamental tendency of the [[symbolic order]] to produce [[repetition]]: <blockquote>"every The [[death drive |death instinct]] is virtually only the mask of the [[symbolic order]]."<ref>{{S2}} p. 326</ref></blockquote> ===Biological Instincts===This shift also marks a [[difference]] with [[Freud]], for whom the [[death drive]] was closely bound up with [[biology]], representing the fundamental tendency of every [[living]] [[thing]] to return to an inorganic [[state]].  By situating the [[death drive]] firmly in the [[symbolic]], [[Lacan]] articulates it with [[culture]] rather than [[nature]];he states that the [[death drive]] "is not a question of biology,"<ref>Ec{{E}} p. 102</ref>, and must be distinguished from the [[biological]] [[instinct]] to return to the inanimate.<ref>{{S7}} p. 211-12</ref> ===Sexual Drives===[[Another]] difference between [[Lacan]]'s concept of the [[death drive]] and [[Freud]]'s emerges in 1964.  [[Freud]] opposed the [[death drive]] to the [[sexual]] [[drive]]s, but now [[Lacan]] argues that the [[death drive]] is not a [[separate]] [[drive]], 844but is in fact an aspect of every [[drive]].  <blockquote>"The [[distinction]] between the [[death drive|life drive]] and the [[death drive]] is - [[true]] in as much as it manifests two aspects of the [[drive]]."<ref>{{S11}} p. 257</ref> </blockquote> Hence [[Lacan]] writes that "every [[drive]] is virtually a [[death drive]]" because:

# every [[drive]] involves the [[subject ]] in [[repetition]], and # every [[drive]] is an attempt to go beyond the [[beyond the pleasure principle]], to the realm of [[excess ]] ''[[jouissance]] '' where [[enjoyment ]] is experienced as suffering. The death drive strives, in Lacan's view, to go beyond the [[pleasure principle]] and to attain the painful joys of [[jouissancesadism|suffering]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 844</ref>

[[Category:TermsFreudian psychology]]

[[Category:Concepts]][[Category:Freudian psychologySymbolic]]