Autodestruction and nonexistence: two distinct aspects of the death drive

The concept of the death drive is more frequently employed by European than by American psychoanalysts, although it is not unanimously accepted even by the former. In recent years there have been attempts to disconnect the longstanding theoretical link between the drive and aggression, in keeping with the observations of various nondestructive components of the death drive. A hitherto unmentioned aspect of this drive is the yearning for nonexistence, a shadow-like counterpoise to life, expressed by two analysands. Both had childhood histories of life-threatening disease without sufficient compensatory maternal presence at the time. Both displayed massive dissociation from their own body and its vital functions, as well as from objects and their representations. The death drive could be viewed as a continuum with the autodestructive aspect, or the striving for death, at one end, and the component of nonbeing, or the yearning for nonexistence, at the other end.