The death instinct

The death instinct has always been a controversial concept, insufficient to account for actual dying, and usually taken to be fused with aggression. After dislodging it from the shadow of aggression in order to evaluate its function, the instinct turns out to be one of the components that form the death motivation. Human beings develop a complex motivation for death, one that is more than biology (instincts) or physics (entropy). It includes (a) the death instinct, the primary analogue; (b) sequellae of the universal experience of object-loss, with identification and fantasies of a restorative reunion; (c) guilt over hostile attitudes toward the lost object, with depression, longings for atonement , and self-punishment; (d) compliance with reality, like that of old age or grave sickness. Examined in light of the complementary series of Freud's aetiological equation, the death instinct turns into a precondition of the composition motivation. Death motivation is a comprehensive concept, since patients express various of its aspects during their psychoanalyses , and it facilitates a metapsychological understanding and refines the accuracy of interpretation.