ABSTRACT
Throughout life, but especially when death is near and ineluctable, it has very far-reaching consequences, one of which is the close articulation between the rigorous recognition of the ineluctable character of death, on the one hand, and self-preservation on the other. It was perhaps an intuition of this nature which led Freud, admittedly briefly, to include the "self-preservative instincts" among the death drives. The author suggests that when the splitting in question has occurred, collusion occurs between self-preservation, even operating in desperation, and the certainty of death. The "healthiest" psychical apparatus, that is, one that governs a person who is totally convinced of his irremediable finiteness, thus depends on a so-called psychotic mechanism, a quasi-existential split at the very heart of the ego. In fact, when the narcissistic libido is wavering, the ego is still involved, and yet it is already no longer the ego but rather a substance that is difficult to confront, almost impossible to expel.
