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On the Death Drive: From Compulsion to Repeat to the Reference to The Thing

This article broadly discusses the concept of the death drive. It demonstrates how a biological frame of reference is inadequate for interpreting the (sexual) drive. The notion of the compulsion to repeat helps us to understand why Freud was forced to introduce the death drive and, at the same time, to acknowledge it as being the underlying determining principle of every drive. Making use of the notions das Ding and objet a we show how Lacan’s reading of this controversial concept of the death drive precludes an organic interpretation. Finally, two clinical fragments illustrate how the activity of the death drive may reveal itself.

An Introduction to the Introduction of 1914. About the Narcissism of Sigmund Freud

This article is an introduction to Freud’s article on Narcissism. It attempts to bring the reader to revisit Freud’s text in a new way. Apart from the requisite amount of narcissism that each psychic system needs, we know all to well the places where that amount is exceeded. It is thought too easily that free association is the way to treat excesses of narcissism. Will a mere promotion of free association be sufficient or should the analyst be more exigent in relation to narcissism?