The Death Drive
Rossella Valdrè, "The Death Drive "
English | ISBN: 103268741X | 2024 | 120 pages | PDF | 2 MB
English | ISBN: 103268741X | 2024 | 120 pages | PDF | 2 MB
This comprehensive yet accessible book analyses the clinical and historical experiences that led to the radical, complex and fundamental psychoanalytic concept of the death drive.
In The Death Drive: A Contemporary Introduction, Rossella Valdrè traces the path that led Sigmund Freud to theorise this key concept in his essay, Beyond the Pleasure Principle. She considers its roots in Freud’s experiences of war trauma and his assessment of the human compulsion to repeat, as well as its consequences on his later theoretical and clinical work. Short vignettes from the clinician’s room and examples from books and films introduce the reader to the birth and development of the concept, its biological and philosophical roots and its many clinical implications. Valdrè also reviews its varied reception among post-Freudians, and examines the controversies and questions that the death drive commonly engenders within the psychoanalytic community. She concludes by considering the death drive through the medium of art, its relationship with sublimation and the confirmation neuroscience is beginning to provide.
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