**1. Introduction**

### **1.1 Freud**

Freud's model of the mind is a dynamic one- that is, it understands the mind as being in constant movement and conflict between impulses arising in one area, along with defenses against these impulses [1, 2]. He developed three models, adjusting them to his clinical material according to his understanding of therapeutic work with his patients as research into the human mind – "psychic apparatus," as he first called it.

### **2. The topographical model of the mind**

Freud's first model was based on repression, which occurs when thoughts or wishes are not acceptable to the thinker, who accordingly learns to repress them from consciousness. The Unconscious – usually metaphorically conceived of as a *deeper* layer of the mind – tries to bring these repressed ideas back to light. The repressed induces dreams, is used in jokes, causes "Freudian slips" and forgetting things, elucidate creative ideas, and sets the formation of a symptom in motion. The return of the repressed is described by Freud in "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life" [3] in a surprising and convincing way.

#### **3. The structural model**

Freud then began to conceptualize the mind less as composed in layers – his favorite archeological metaphor of the analyst who is searching for a buried culture – than as consisting of agencies or structures: the ego, the super-ego and the id. The id corresponds roughly with much of what had previously been encompassed by the concept of the Unconscious. It can be regarded as an area containing the primitive instinctual elements, dominated by the pleasure principle and functioning according to the primary process, as in dreams. The ego constitutes the rational part of the mind which is in touch with the external world, and which tries to mediate between our desires and reality so that we can stop insisting on the impossible, and settle for what is – thus postponing the fulfillment of impulses. The superego is a fiercely irrational, unreasonable half-instinctual force granting only partial gratification or even suppresses instinctual impulses. Sandler stats, that … it developed as a sort of internal stratum or residue of the child's early conflicts in relation to his parents…, ([4], p. 27). The idea that we act according to the pleasure principle was difficult to maintain when Freud discovered the repetition impulse, the negative therapeutic reaction and masochism/sadism.

The concept of the death instinct, Thanatos, and the life instinct, Eros, as two basic instincts.

Freud introduced the idea of the death instinct in 1920 in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" as a biological drive and expands on its psychological significance in 1923 in "The Ego and the Id." "His view is that under the influence of the life instinct some of the death instinct is deflected out in the form of an attack on the object," writes Spillius et al. in the *New Dictionary of Kleinian Thought* ([5], p. 298). Freud writes:

*Besides the instinct to preserve living substance and to join in into ever larger units, there must exist another, contrary instinct seeking to dissolve those units and to bring them back to their primeval inorganic state. That is to say, as well as Eros there was an instinct to death. The phenomena of life could be explained from the concurrent or mutually opposing action of these two instincts … a portion of the (death) instinct is diverted towards the external world and comes to light as an instinct of aggressiveness and destructiveness. In this way the instinct itself could be pressed into the service of Eros, in that the organism was destroying some other thing, animated or inanimate instead of destroying its own self. Conversely, any restriction of its aggressiveness directed outwards would be bound to increase the self-destruction, which is in any case proceeding. At the same time one can suspect from this example that the two kinds of instinct seldom – perhaps never – appear in isolation from each other, but are alloyed with each other in varying and very different proportions and so become unrecognizable to our judgment." ([6], p. 119)*

#### *Is the Death Instinct Silent or Clinically Relevant? From Freud's Concept of a Silent Death… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94444*

Freud distinguishes between two very general tendencies which he referred to as *libido* or *Eros,* on the one hand, and *aggression,* which he formulated in terms of the *death instinct (Thanatos)*, on the other. Libido or Eros is manifested in all processes, both physiological and psychological, that impel towards synthesis. Freud assumed that the death instinct remains within and some of the remaining death instinct is fused with the libido to form sexual masochism. Other fusions occur, resulting for example in 'moral masochism', but some remain unfused as 'primal sadism' ([7], p. 164) when cruel action give pleasure and lust. The death instinct or the Nirvana principle constitutes the most fundamental aspects of instinctual life: To return to an earlier state, the absolute "Ruhe des Anorganischen" (repose of the inorganic) ([8], p. 102) and is therefore an economical principle reducing energy to zero/nil; it is silent operating in the background and cannot be seen in the clinical material.

With the concept of the death instinct, Freud managed to solve three riddles and explain the contradictions regarding the pleasure principal and Libido as a source of primal strength.

First, some consideration needed to be given to the phenomena of the "Compulsion to Repeat'-- repeating unconsciously unpleasant experiences from earlier life instead of overcoming them – "an irrepressible force which is independent of the pleasure principle" … "a fundamental tendency of every living being to return to the inorganic state." ([8], p. 102). The repetition compulsion occurs in a patient's transference relationship to the analyst, patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving from earlier life – which can be painful and distressing. The repetition compulsion also occurs outside analysis, in normal as well as in pathological relationships – Freud likened it to the death instinct in his later writing.

The second riddle to be solved was the concept of sado-masochism and hate. From the very beginning, it seemed impossible to Freud that hate could be derived, metapsychologically speaking, from the sexual instinct.

The third riddle was the negative therapeutic reaction, which means that some patients reacted badly to analytic interpretations even after they had acknowledged their accuracy. "One begins by regarding this as a defiance and as an attempt to prove their superiority to the physician, but later one comes to take a deeper and juster view. One becomes convinced, not only that such people cannot endure any praise or appreciation (of the analyst GDW) but that they react inversely to the progress of the treatment…. A temporary suspension of the symptoms produces in them for the time being am exacerbation of their illness; they get worse during the treatment instead of better." ([9], p. 49) Freud explained the negative therapeutic reaction in two ways: as an expression of unconscious guilt or as an envious attack on the analyst.

The death instinct is perhaps Freud's most controversial assumption. It has been severely criticized by both psychoanalysts and others and highly appreciated and further developed by Herbert Rosenfeld [10], Betty Joseph [11] and Hanna Segal [12]- the object relation school. This was difficult for the psychanalytic community to accept, because Freud thought that the manifestation of the death instinct was silent, meaning that one could not investigate it in clinical material as they two instincts are fused and defused with the result that it can be observed in a number of different mental states, e.g. a fear of falling apart and disintegration, selfdestructiveness, destructiveness, envy, sadism ([5], p. 298).

#### **4. Melanie Klein's and Bion's concept of the death instinct**

Melanie Klein used Freud's view of the death instinct and his concept of incorporated objects to give a theoretical basis to her clinical observations in work with small children and their harsh and punitive attitudes towards themselves and

towards figures of their imagination. "Klein considers the harsh internal figure to be the introjected hostile mother whose hostility towards the child stem from the sadistic phantasies attacks that the child made of her … this hostile internal mother as an early version of the superego." ([5], p. 299).

Klein assumes that from the very beginning the baby has a core-ego and an inner conflict between Eros and Thanatos. In the International Journal of Psychoanalysis celebrating its 100th anniversary a chapter is dedicated to "Repletion and the Death Drive" (2019). Freud's concept of the death instinct is seen by Blass as a "new view on the tie between narcissism and death, which is relevant for the Kleinian view of it" ([13], p. 1294). She connects Freud's concept of a fundamentally opposed instincts, from which all emotions, sensations, desires, and activities derive as affirmation of Klein's concept of the paranoid/schizoid and depressive position. Rosenfeld [14], Bion and Segal [12, 15] suggest an anti-object relational force with destructive attacks on the self and the object.

The first year of life is of enormous significant for the baby as the basic elements of the physical and psychic development are laid. One can it compare with building the foundations of a house and of equal importance for its stability and structure. The child needs another living and caring object to perceive the real world, being aware of the difference between inner and outer sensations: although Klein assumes a core-ego since birth the baby's thinking, and its relationship to the parents are all evolving out of raw, unintegrated feelings and perceptions. The parents or caregivers must help the infant as it copes with its raw, primitive and archaic feelings and somatic perceptions. They need to be perceptive how the baby feels and what it needs. In the first three months, a "social birth" follows the baby's physical birth, where it builds a relationship to the world via its relationship to its mother or caregiver (primary object). The infant can establish elements of structure and inner order if its mother succeeds in containing and understanding its raw fears and giving it back to the baby describing them with words so that the baby can introject them. Winnicott calls this ability of the mother "Primary maternal preoccupation," Stern speaks of "mother and baby being in harmony or in tune" Bion speaks of a special ability which he calls "Reverie" meaning the capacity to sense what is going on in the infant [16].

In Bions's words, the baby needs a mother/container in order to be emotionally touched; this mother/container takes in the baby's projected raw sensory data, which Bion calls "Beta-Elements," and transforms them into "alpha" elements which the child can introject and begin to think ([16], p. 110–119). Esther Bick compares the infant with an astronaut who has been shot into space without a spacesuit. She thinks the baby fears that it will either disintegrate or die. Especially this observation when a baby is undressed and start trembling is considered as expression of this basic fear ([17], p. 296).

By internalizing its mother's caring and containment the baby develops a positive core in its psyche, a "good inner object," which remains a secure inner base. The loving, emotional care, the infant's first encounters with chaotic forces remain embedded in the deepest levels of its personality, constituting a "psychotic core" that is normally subordinated by positive experiences. If, on the other hand the baby finds his despair and misery are not received, it leaves him with what Bion calls "nameless dread," unspecified, unthinkable thoughts which have continually to be expelled/projected into others ([18], p. 7).

Now I shall describe a vignette from an observation of an infant and its mother following the Tavistock model developed by Esher Bick (the observation follows Esther Bick's method, developed at the Tavistock Clinic) [17, 19]. As the method is well known, I shall simply add that the observation is for one hour and notes are not made until after the observation. The observation is written up, presented

#### *Is the Death Instinct Silent or Clinically Relevant? From Freud's Concept of a Silent Death… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94444*

and discussed in a weekly seminar of 4–5 participants led by a psychoanalytically trained clinician who is experienced in Infant Observation. The observation of Felix and his parents was video-recorded by Barnett [20] for research and video purposes. As he was born on a Sunday, she called him "Sunday child."
