ABSTRACT

Laplanche presented his theory of a Sexual Death Drive at an international forum at the EPA congress in Marseille in 1984. His presentation instigated an international debate on his reading of “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”. Laplanche, with his incorruptible way of thinking, has managed to uphold a very necessary disposition regarding the passionately illogical text of “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, this bursting-at-the-seams oeuvre. The concept of destruction that is introduced in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” and is termed aggression there for the first time, has to be seen first and foremost as a form of self-destruction–a turning around on oneself. This is an essential presupposition for the introduction of a “Sexual Death Drive” as proposed by Laplanche. Even the concept of repetition compulsion – likewise newly positioned in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” and named a loyal servant to the death drive – shows its true face as a constructive principle of analytical work from the very beginnings of the treatment.