On the question of the death instinct

Abstract

The author discusses Sigmund Freud's and Sabina Spielrein's speculations and theories about the Death Instinct, and considers the views of Ernest Becker and Alexander Lowen. His own starting point was not believing in a death instinct. However, several phenomena in his Existential Characteranalytic Vegetotherapy have indicated the existence of a destructive death instinct. Some clients felt they were lying like corpses in a coffin, while others lie there as if dead without any movements or signs of breathing. It was a challenge to let them be without intervening. After some time they started breathing and moving, reporting their body experiences, how they felt their heart stop and the blood stop in their veins, and that they were only millimeters from really dying. The awakening was felt as pleasurable, and for some even sexual. The dread of death was gone.

The conclusion is that there is no original, biological death instinct, but something more like secondary phenomena. »Clients have to get familiar with the death in theme«.