ABSTRACT
The conflict between life drives and death drives is fundamental. The former have a binding effect, while the latter have a detaching effect. Death drives must be linked to Life drives in order to avoid their destructiveness. This fundamental conflict is at the heart of the processes of splitting and idealization. Splitting produces persecuting objects and idealized objects, which inaugurate the deployment of the phantasmatic life. Splitting, which lies between dismantling and repression, is an integrating mechanism, but it can be destructive if it is excessive.
