Death Drive, Repetition Compulsion, and Primary Masochism

Abstract

This article takes up the 1920 Freudian text, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, to think about how psychic life is described in terms of drive imbrication or the connection between libido and the death drive and to suggest that the compulsion to repeat pain and displeasure can be thought of as an attempt to reestablish the primary masochism, which for some reason would have failed.

Keywords

• life drive, death drive, repetition, primary masochism