Table Of ContentON FREUD’S
“BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE”
CONTEMPORARY FREUD
Turning Points and Critical Issues
Series Editor: Leticia Glocer Fiorini
IPA Publications Committee
Leticia Glocer Fiorini (Buenos Aires), Chair; Samuel Arbiser (Buenos Aires); Paulo Cesar Sandler
(São Paulo); Christian Seulin (Lyon); Gennaro Saragnano (Rome); Mary Kay O’Neil (Montreal);
Gail S. Reed (New York)
On Freud’s “Analysis Terminable and Interminable”
edited by Joseph Sandler
Freud’s “On Narcissism: An Introduction”
edited by Joseph Sandler, Ethel Spector Person, Peter Fonagy
On Freud’s “Observations on Transference-Love”
edited by Ethel Spector Person, Aiban Hagelin, Peter Fonagy
On Freud’s “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming”
edited by Ethel Spector Person, Peter Fonagy, Sérvulo Augusto Figueira
On Freud’s “A Child Is Being Beaten”
edited by Ethel Spector Person
On Freud’s “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego”
edited by Ethel Spector Person
On Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia”
edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini, Thierry Bokanowski, Sergio Lewkowicz
On Freud’s “The Future of an Illusion”
edited by Mary Kay O’Neil & Salman Akhtar
On Freud’s “Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence”
edited by Thierry Bokanowski & Sergio Lewkowicz
On Freud’s “Femininity”
edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini & Graciela Abelin-Sas Rose
On Freud’s “Constructions in Analysis”
edited by Sergio Lewkowicz & Thierry Bokanowski, with Georges Pragier
ON FREUD’S
“BEYOND
THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE”
Edited by
Salman Akhtar and Mary Kay O’Neil
CONTEMPORARY FREUD
Turning Points and Critical Issues
KARNAC
Chapter 2, R. Caropreso & T. Simanke, “Life and Death in Freudian
Metapsychology: A Reappraisal of the Second Instinctual Dualism”, International
Journal of Psychoanalysis, 89: 977–992. Copyright © 2008. Reprinted by permission
of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Chapter 6, O. Kernberg, “The Concept of the Death Drive: A Clinical
Perspective”, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 90: 1009–1023. Copyright ©
2009. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Chapter 7, B. Joseph, “Addiction to Near-Death”, International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 63: 449–456. Copyright © 1982. Reprinted by permission of the
publisher, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
First published in 2011 by
Karnac Books
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London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2011 by The International Psychoanalytical Association
All contributors retain the copyright to their own chapters.
The rights of the editors and contributors to be identified as the authors
of this work have been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the
Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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ISBN: 978–1–85575–785–1
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CONTENTS
CONTEMPORARY FREUD
IPA Publications Committee vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS xi
Introduction
Salman Akhtar 1
PART I
Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920g)
Sigmund Freud 13
PART II
Discussion of Beyond the Pleasure Principle
1 Jenseits and beyond: teaching Freud’s late work
W. Craig Tomlinson 73
v
vi Contents
2 Life and death in Freudian metapsychology:
a reappraisal of the second instinctual dualism
Fátima Caropreso & Richard Theisen Simanke 86
3 An unusual manifestation of repetition compulsion
in traumatized patients
Ira Brenner 108
4 The dream in Beyond the Pleasure Principle
and beyond
Joshua Levy 128
5 Does the death-instinct-based theory of aggression
hold up?
Henri Parens 154
6 The concept of the death drive: a clinical perspective
Otto Kernberg 173
7 Addiction to near-death
Betty Joseph 191
8 Manifestations of the death instinct
in the consulting room
Michael Feldman 206
9 A Hindu reading of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Ashok Nagpal 230
10 The trauma of lost love in psychoanalysis
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl 250
Epilogue
Mary Kay O’Neil 265
REFERENCES 279
INDEX 297
CONTEMPORARY FREUD
IPA Publications Committee
This significant series was founded by Robert Wallerstein and first
edited by Joseph Sandler, Ethel Spector Person, and Peter Fonagy,
and its important contributions have greatly interested psychoana-
lysts of different latitudes.
The objective of this series is to approach Freud’s work from
a present and contemporary point of view. On the one hand, this
means highlighting the fundamental contributions of his work that
constitute the axes of psychoanalytic theory and practice. On the
other, it implies the possibility of getting to know and spreading the
ideas of present psychoanalysts about Freud’s oeuvre, both where
they coincide and where they differ.
This series considers at least two lines of development: a con-
temporary reading of Freud that reclaims his contributions and a
clarification of the logical and epistemic perspectives from which
he is read today.
Freud’s theory has branched out, and this has led to a theoreti-
cal, technical, and clinical pluralism that has to be worked through.
It has therefore become necessary to avoid a snug and uncritical
coexistence of concepts in order to consider systems of increasing
vii
viii Contemporary Freud
complexities that take into account both the convergences and the
divergences of the categories at play.
Consequently, this project has involved an additional task—that
is, gathering psychoanalysts from different geographical regions
representing, in addition, different theoretical stances, in order to
be able to show their polyphony. This also means an extra effort for
the reader that has to do with distinguishing and discriminating,
establishing relations or contradictions that each reader will have
to eventually work through.
Being able to listen to other theoretical viewpoints is also a
way of exercising our listening capacities in the clinical field. This
means that the listening should support a space of freedom that
would allow us to hear what is new and original.
In this spirit we have brought together authors deeply rooted in
the Freudian tradition and others who have developed theories that
had not been explicitly taken into account in Freud’s work.
In Beyond the Pleasure Principle Freud puts forward a new dualism
and introduces the dichotomy between the life and death drives.
He emphasizes that the death drive reveals the repetitive character
of the drives. Masochism, melancholia, negative therapeutic reac-
tion, and sense of guilt are explained by Freud in a new way. The
concept of the death drive has been discussed among post-Freudian
analysts from different viewpoints, and there is no an agreement
about its significance, with some emphasizing its speculative char-
acter, others pointing out its clinical importance.
The editors, Salman Akhtar and Mary Kay O’Neil, together with
the contributors to this volume, accepted the challenge to consider
Freudian ideas and update this debate.
Special thanks are due to Charles Hanly, the President of the
IPA, for his support, and to the editors and contributors to this
volume, which enriches the Contemporary Freud’s series.
Leticia Glocer Fiorini
Series Editor
Chair of the Publications Committee of
the International Psychoanalytical Association
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, we wish to thank the distinguished colleagues
who contributed to this volume. We deeply appreciate their efforts,
their sacrifice of time, and, above all, their patience with our require-
ments, reminders, and requests for revisions. With sincerity and
affection, we acknowledge the guidance of the members of the cur-
rent IPA Publications Committee, especially its Chair, Leticia Glocer
Fiorini. We are also thankful to Rhoda Bawdekar for keeping track
of all sorts of matters during the book’s actual production.
Salman Akhtar & Mary Kay O’Neil
ix
