Death drive or Thanatos: what is it?

There are moments that are deeply heartbreaking.. They generate or project the sensation of a great emptiness, giving rise to the idea that everything is lost from this perceived lack of existence. In these moments, precisely, the death drive gains greater strength, as if it benefits from that inertia that seems to precipitate us into nothingness.

According to psychoanalysis, a discipline that emphasizes the unconscious, and which was founded by Sigmund Freud, The drives give rise to each of the activities of our mind, They have a force that pushes us to action, while their goal is to satisfy the excitement and they are associated with an organ from which an object emerges: that which satisfies them.

In this article, we will show you that, although they have the opposite reputation, drives are not necessarily a sexual issue, and that destruction is also necessary for human beings. Besides, We will show you what the death drive is all about.how it manifests itself in our lives and why, although its name seems to indicate otherwise, it is not always negative for our survival.

Death drive, what is it?

Thanatos or the death drive is an unconscious impulse that seeks the cessation of tensions in the body. through impulses of self-destruction and aggression. Likewise, this psychic force emerges from birth and accompanies the individual throughout their life.

Its objective is to return the psyche to a state of non-tension and total rest; and with this, transcend the instability and increase in excitations typical of the life of the organism.

According to Freud, the death drive is opposed to the life drive (Eros) because It does not motivate human beings to cohesion and pleasant union with objects and the world. Instead, it drives the disintegration of ties.

To better understand this opposition, it is pertinent to take into account that The life drive refers to those psychic impulses that seek the self-preservation of the ego and the satisfaction of the psychic apparatus. through links with other people or objects.

In this sense, the life drive seeks the avoidance of displeasure and the reduction of tension, through the satisfaction of basic needs: hunger, sleep, clothing, hygiene and sexual union to extend the species through desire mediated by culture.

Now, Thanatos and the life drive go hand in hand; They are always present, they give shape to a dialectic as a struggle and a balance whose result is life itself, self-preservation. Therefore, let Thanatos be a force for dissolution, It does not mean that it is, always and from all points of view, negative; or that the drive of life is always positive.

What is Thanatos in psychology?

Freud never used, except orally, the term Thanatos to refer to the death drive that later became so popular. This term, in psychology, was proposed by the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Sabina Spielreinfrom the Freudian text Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and is based on the Greek personification of the god of death Thanatos.

According to Greek mythology, Thanatos was the personification of death without violence.so his touch was gentle, like that of his twin Hypnos, sleep.

Now, in psychology, Thanatos represents a primitive disposition of the unconscious and can be related to emptiness.

This void may correspond to what psychoanalysts call “lost object” (mother’s breast), which It is experienced as a feeling of abandonment and distressing loss; or also as loss of illusions about life.

Therefore, Thanatos mobilizes the human being to disintegrate and reduce all excitations to redirect him to an inorganic state of non-being.

However the Thanatos also corresponds to the vital force that drives the Self to redefine its existence on the mysterious path of life.. Therefore, the death drive can also be understood as the aggressive impulse that allows the subject to fight and make a place for themselves in their existence.

Death drive and its manifestations

Within the framework of psychoanalysis, the presentation of certain concepts can scare us due to the complexity they exude. Thus, in many cases they are not applied or are discarded. Transcending this first scare, We show you some ways in which the death drive manifests itself. with the aim of simplifying its meaning and understanding. Let’s go with them:

Aggressiveness. When we are aggressive we destroy: either others, nature or ourselves. It’s like this because we try to cause harm. In fact, Sigmund Freud in his book The malaise of culture shows aggressiveness as the biggest obstacle to the development of culture.Mental illness. In mental illness we tend to harm ourselves. A clear example of this is borderline disorder or borderline personality disorder.Projection. It is a defense mechanism in which what really happens in us we see in others.Displeasure. When something tends not to satisfy us, to make us anxious, to cause us discomfort, the death drive is manifesting itself.Toxic relationships: The destructive tendencies of the death drive can also manifest in those couples where both harm each other based on their idea of ​​love.

However, The death drive is related to other principles. It is associated with the reality principle, which is what helps us regulate. Well, the pleasure principle, on the one hand, acts trying to satisfy, and the reality principle tells us “stop,” when it is not appropriate. This is how we coexist in society in an assertive way.

But, the death drive is even more associated with the principle of nirvanaone that has the tendency to reach nothingness, total rest, in other words, death.

The death drive is also positive

Although Thanatos can lead us down the path of self-destruction, his influence is not normally negative.. On the one hand, we can learn from every moment of life in which we self-destruct, creating the opportunity to train resilience: the strength that allows us to face adversity.

Besides, The death drive also has to do with rest, which is extremely necessary for survival. If we think about it that way, that is, as something adaptive, we remove that character of darkness and shadows that it seems to have associated with it.

But why adaptive? Well, because in many situations allow us to fight and defend ourselves. And, because it is associated with the moment of orgasm; On the one hand, the life drive strives to achieve sexual satisfaction and on the other, Thanatos is linked to the moment of discharge or return, that is, to the point from which we return to rest.

Besides, The death drive facilitates a separation between ourselves and objects. This allows us to identify ourselves, be authentic, and not merge mentally with them.

In sum, Thanatos is as destructive as it is restorative. It is essential for survival and acts alongside the life drive, without separating from it. It is an unmatched force from which we have much to learn.

You might be interested…