Typed up excerpt from Human Destructiveness, by Anthony Storr


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Death Instinct.

"The use of the term "instinct", by both Schilder and Freud is anachronistic, because it suggests that aggression is an innate drive requiring periodic discharge.

As I pointed out earlier, no one now thinks of aggression in this way. However, if one makes allowance for his old - fashioned terminology, Freud's view that aggression & self preservation are connected is in line with what I have argued thus far.

Freud considered that aggression was derived from the so-called "death instinct" being redirected toward the external world.

Very few analysts, with the exception of Melanie Klein , have accepted Freud's concept of a "death instinct", but since Freud is so centrally important in any consideration of human motivation, a brief explanation of what he meant is required.
Freud originally regarded aggression as a sadistic aspect of the sexual instinct, a primitive form of dominating or mastering the sexual object. Love in this form and at this preliminary stage (pregenital) is hardly to be distinguished from hate in its attitude toward the object. Not until the genital organization is established does a love become the opposite of hate.

Hate, as a relation to objects, is older than love.
It derives from the narcissistic ego's primordial repudiation of the external world with outpouring of stimuli. As an expression of the reaction of unpleasure evoked by objects, it always, remains in intimate relation with the self -preservative instincts; so that sexual & ego- instincts can readily develop an antithesis which repeats that of love & hate.

When the ego- instincts dominate the sexual function, as is the case at the stage of the sadistic- anal organization, they impart the qualities of hate to the instinctual aim as well. The First World War may have influenced Freud in finally accepting the idea that aggression is independent of sex. (cont'd page 18)"


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