Death drive in Lacan (2): Repetition not biology

For Lacan, as for Freud, instances of traumatic repetition and self-sabotaging are to be found everywhere in the clinic. For this reason, we cannot call ourselves psychoanalysts (or psychoanalytic theorists) unless we take the notion of death drive seriously. At the basis of Lacan’s revision of the Freudian idea is the concept of repetition, or ’repetition automatism’, a phrase he prefers to the more overtly psychological notion of ’repetition compulsion’. Crucial here also is the idea that death drive is a form of agency (a radical negativity) that takes us beyond the realm of instincts, that ’de-natures’ us, and delivers from being merely natural beings. Link to board: