In face of the relative indetermination of the notion of death drive, as well as of the great controversies it provoked, the author suggests that when Freud first presented this notion he only signaled his concern with clinical facts which had not been taken conveniently into account. Only later, with the development of the theory of the superego, he succeeded in obtaining theoretical tools for the clinic of the attraction for suffering and pain.
Superego; death drive; destructivity; history; energy