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Ferenczi’s variations on the death drive

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Abstract

This theoretical paper discusses three variations on the death drive, developed by Sándor Ferenczi. We present a brief history of the use of the term death drive among the first psychoanalysts and argue that, as early as 1913, the notion is used by Ferenczi and serves as a conceptual background for his thinking. During the 1920s, Ferenczi revisits part of this concept, focusing on what he identifies as a primacy of self-destruction. The destructive drive gains an adaptive character responsible for the mortification of parts of the individual, in exchange for the survival of the whole. In this variation, the tendency to regress also arises as the self-destruction drive and the acceptance of unpleasure involves a psychic “reckoning-machine.” In the final variation, left unfinished, the death drive at times receives new names, like drive for “conciliation,” and at others, the very idea of the death drive is criticized.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. São Paulo, Brazil

    Eugênio Canesin Dal Molin

  2. Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Nelson Ernesto Coelho Junior

  3. Department of Psychoanalysis of Instituto Sedes Sapientiae, São Paulo, Brazil

    Renata Udler Cromberg

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  1. Eugênio Canesin Dal Molin
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  2. Nelson Ernesto Coelho Junior
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  3. Renata Udler Cromberg
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Address correspondence to Eugênio Canesin Dal Molin, Ph.D., Rua Oscar Freire, 1513/92, São Paulo, SP, CEP 05409-010, Brazil.

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Dal Molin, E.C., Coelho Junior, N.E. & Cromberg, R.U. Ferenczi’s variations on the death drive. Am J Psychoanal 83, 231–249 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-023-09407-9

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