ABSTRACT
The sense of being dead has become a popular clinical theme. More people than in the past now seek help for feeling dead. Although feeling dead is a central complaint of many individuals, it is not clear where this deadness comes from or what can be done about it. S. Freud’s work is rich with ambiguities, contradictions, and complexities. Freud may say there is no death in the unconscious, yet he writes of unconscious death wishes. For Freud the primal trauma is flooding, a maximum state of excitement. Freud pictures a system that can generate more stimulation than it can handle. A one is too much for oneself paradigm can be applied to many facets of psychophysical being–neurological, sexual, social, emotional, and cognitive. The play of aliveness-deadness runs through Freud’s work. He is concerned with the raw presence-absence of sexual energy, its rise and fall, re-routings, rechannelings, its fate as it meets with internal-external obstacles and resistances.
