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The Death Instinct and Destruction: Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein

In: Leadership is a Matter of Life and Death

Author

Listed:
  • Adrian N. Carr
  • Cheryl A. Lapp

Abstract

In this chapter we examine the death instinct in perhaps its most widely known and even its most popular forms that are biological urges transmuted into acts of destruction and aggression (Gillespie, 1995). Our research finds that Sigmund Freud’s and Melanie Klein’s works on the death instinct show that it is not comprised of merely the one attribute of aggression. In fact, under both the umbrellas of Sigmund Freud’s posits of individual psychology and Melanie Klein’s object-relations theorising, we find that the death instinct is comprised of a class of instincts, one of which culminates in aggression or a “derivative of the death instinct” (Rycroft, 1968/1995, p. 5). So, this chapter reveals how these classes interact to provide a psychodynamic process of instinctually based thoughts and behaviours, or defence mechanisms including, but not limited to aggression.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrian N. Carr & Cheryl A. Lapp, 2006. "The Death Instinct and Destruction: Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Leadership is a Matter of Life and Death, chapter 2, pages 19-55, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-20787-5_2
    DOI: 10.1057/9780230207875_2
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