The SITE Conference 05.10.24 - The Death Drive Revisited: A Relational Psychoanalytic Perspective

In this presentation at the SITE for Contemporary Psychoanalysis Conference, I revisit Freud's controversial concept of the death drive from the perspective of contemporary relational psychoanalysis. The death drive, first introduced in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), posits an innate human drive towards destruction, chaos, and the dissolution of life that counters the creative force of the sexual libido (Eros). Despite its profound explanatory power, the death drive has been subject to widespread criticism and revision due to its speculative metaphysical nature. I argue that the death drive can be productively re-conceptualised through a relational psychoanalytic lens as a destructive force emerging from and impacting human relationships and intersubjectivity. I explore the relational origins of the death drive in failures of empathic attunement and recognition in early attachments, its defensive functions in warding off vulnerability and mourning, its enactments within therapeutic dynamics and transference, its role in pathological personality structures like narcissism, borderline states, and psychosis, and its manifestations in the intergenerational transmission of trauma. By situating the death drive relationally as a manifestation of distorted intersubjectivity and disruptions to the recognizing systems that constitute psychological life, I aim to demonstrate the enduring clinical relevance of this challenging concept for themes of aggression, trauma, mourning and psychopathology. I argue that the oblique, opaque quality of the death drive poignantly captures the ineradicable negativity within subjectivity that resists symbolization and recognition. The death drive’s insistent repetitions and enactments are framed as paradoxical strivings for interpersonal connection and care in the face of tragic alienation and loss. A composite clinical case inspired by Maurice Apprey’s work on transgenerational trauma illustrates how the death drive carries encrypted remnants of overwhelming collective and historical losses through unconscious identification, repetition compulsion, and distorted attachment patterns. Overall, I attempt to make the case for the ongoing theoretical value of the death drive when re-envisioned through a relational psychoanalytic framework centred on intersubjectivity, mutual recognition, and the infinite human struggle to sustain meaningful interpersonal bonds against the pull of existential dissolution.

Here is the link to watch the YouTube video of the presentation and the subsequent Q&A:

The Death Drive Revisited: A Relational Psychoanalytic Perspective - The Site Conference 05.10.2024