The death drive or the drive
towards death is a well-known Freudian term which many directions of psychoanalysis
have already abandoned today. There are things that make a person want to live:
joy, love, children, pride on something, success, feeling of happiness,
intimacy with another person, participation in common endeavor. This all is the
drive towards life. But there are
things, situations that cause feelings of emptiness in a person, uselessness,
meaninglessness, longing. This is the drive towards
death. When it wins us over we experience pain, not physical pain but what
can be described as aching anguish. Everyone experiences it one way or another.
As if something is tearing apart from the inside. When you think if it lasts a
little bit more you will just break down. It calls and pushes…
Freud called this “the
death drive”.