[[Image:Kida_d.gif|right|frame|[[Kid A In Alphabet Land]]]]
{{Top}}[[pulsion]] de [[mort]]]]''
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|| [[German]]: ''[[Todestrieb{{Bottom}}
In ==Sigmund Freud==[[Sigmund Freud|Freud]] introduced the [[concept]] of the [[death drive]] in ''[[Beyond the Pleasure Principle]]'' (1920). Here he established a fundamental opposition between [[death drive|life drive]]s (''[[eros]]''), conceived of as a tendency towards [[cohesion]] and [[unity]], and the [[death drive]]s, which operate in the opposite direction, [[undoing]] connections and destroying things. The concept of the [[death drive]] was one of the most controversial [[:category:concepts|concepts]] introduced by [[Freud]], and many of his disciples rejected it, but [[Freud]] continued to reaffirm the concept for the rest of his [[life]]. ==Jacques Lacan=====Psychoanalysis===[[Lacan]] follows [[Freud]] in reaffirming the concept of the [[death drive]] as central to [[psychoanalysis]]: <blockquote>"To ignore the [[death instinct]] in his [Freud's] [[doctrine]] is to misunderstand that doctrine entirely."<ref>{{E}} p. 301</ref></blockquote> ===Nostalgia===In [[Lacan]]'s first remarks on the [[death drive]], in 1938, he describes it as a [[nostalgia]] for a [[preoedipal|lost harmony]], a [[desire]] to [[return]] to the [[preoedipal|preoedipal fusion]] with the [[mother]]'s [[breast]], the [[castration|loss]] of which is marked on the [[psyche]] in the [[complex|weaning complex]].<ref>{{1938}} p. 35</ref> ===Narcissism===In 1946 he [[links]] the [[death drive]] to the [[narcissism|suicidal tendency]] of [[narcissism]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 186</ref>. By linking the [[death drive]] with the [[preoedipal phase]] and with [[narcissism]], these early remarks would [[place]] the [[death drive]] in what [[Lacan]] later comes to call the [[imaginary order]]. ===Symbolic Order===However, when [[Lacan]] 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>"The [[death drive|death instinct]] is only the mask of the [[symbolic order]]."<ref>{{S2}} p. 326</ref></blockquote> ===Biological Instincts===This shift also marks a [[difference]] with [[Sigmund Freud]] introduces , 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>{{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]], but 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]] pursues its own extinction, # every [[drive]] involves the [[subject]] in [[repetition]], and # every [[drive]] is an attempt to go beyond the [[pleasure principle]], to the realm of [[excess]] ''[[jouissance]]'' where [[enjoyment]] is experienced as [[sadism|suffering]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 844</ref> ==See Also=={{See}}* [[Biology]]* [[Death]]||* [[Drive]]* [[Imaginary]]||* [[Instinct]]* ''[[Jouissance]]''||* [[Kleinian psychoanalysis]]* [[Narcissism]]||* [[Nature]]* [[Pleasure principle]]||* [[Repetition]]* [[Symbolic]]{{Also}} ==References==<div style="font-size:11px" class="references-small"><references/></div> [[Category:Freudian psychology]][[Category:Psychoanalysis]][[Category:Symbolic]][[Category:Real]][[Category:Subject]][[Category:Jacques Lacan]][[Category:Dictionary]][[Category:Concepts]][[Category:Terms]] __NOTOC__
