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The death drive, developed by Sigmund Freud, is the opposing force to the life instinct and responsible for the apparent need in living beings to return to a non-living state. It is a controversial concept as it assumes humans have a natural desire that is self-destructive and opposes the will to live. The death drive is a destructive compulsion that often manifests itself through anger, aggression, and violence toward oneself or others. Freud developed this theory to explain why people repeat harmful or traumatic actions despite a natural instinct for life and self-preservation.
The death drive is a concept developed by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud which is responsible for the apparent need in living beings to return to a non-living state. Freud developed this theory as an antithesis to the “life instinct” which is responsible for the natural drive towards self-preservation, pleasurable experiences and procreation. This is a somewhat controversial concept, however, as it assumes that humans have a natural desire that is self-destructive and opposes the will to live. The death drive was developed by Freud as an explanation for a behavior he saw in which people seemed to repeat harmful or traumatic actions despite a natural instinct for life and self-preservation.
He is also referred to as Thanatos, the name of a figure in Greek mythology associated with death and dying. The idea behind the death drive is that there are opposing forces which are an element of human nature. One of these two forces is the life instinct, which is responsible for making people want to live and procreate, and otherwise drives sexual impulses and desires. The counteracting force to this is the death drive, which is a destructive compulsion that often manifests itself through anger, aggression, and violence toward oneself or others.
Even among followers of Freud’s approach to psychology, there is great debate about the death drive and its influence on humanity. The controversy arises because of the idea that it is a natural aspect of human thought and consciousness and that such destructive thoughts and attitudes would, therefore, also be natural. There are some researchers and psychological practitioners, however, who believe that the death drive makes sense and see support for it in human behavior. Depression can be related to this idea, as it can be seen as an expression of anger and destructiveness directed inward rather than outward to the person feeling it.
Freud developed the idea of the death drive towards his last years of work in psychoanalysis, as he tried to explain the behavior he observed. He saw that people often seemed to relive or recreate traumatic and terrible experiences in the present, rather than trying to keep them in the past. Over time, this behavior indicated to Freud that people have a natural tendency to repeat certain actions that are destructive and ultimately seem to work against the more beneficial life instinct. This behavior underlay the death drive, which he saw as a regressive force in people’s lives, moving them back to a previous non-living state, rather than forward to life and pleasure.
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