Welcome to PEP Web! Viewing the full text of this document requires a subscription to PEP Web. If you are coming in from a university from a registered IP address or secure referral page you should not need to log in. Contact your university librarian in the event of problems. If you have a personal subscription on your own account or through a Society or Institute please put your username and password in the box below. Any difficulties should be reported to your group administrator. Username: Password: Can't remember your username and/or password? If you have forgotten your username and/or password please click here and log in to the PaDS database. Once there you need to fill in your email address (this must be the email address that PEP has on record for you) and click "Send." Your username and password will be sent to this email address within a few minutes. If this does not work for you please contact your group organizer. Athens user? Login here. Not already a subscriber? Order a subscription today.

(1995). Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, 18:85-118

“Destruction as Cause of Becoming”

Sabina Spielrein, M.D.

Translated by:
Stuart K. Witt

[465] In my work with sexual problems one question has especially interested me: why this most powerful drive, the drive of reproduction [Fortpflanzungstrieb], houses within itself, next to the a priori expected positive feelings, negative ones like anxiety and disgust, the latter of which really has to be overcome so that one can get to the positive activity. The negative attitude of the individual toward sexual activity [Sexualbetätigung] is, of course, especially evident in neurotics. So far as I know, individual researchers have sought the explanation of this resistance [Widerstandes] in our mores, in the upbringing of our children which endeavors to keep the drive within limits, and therefore teaches every child to regard the realization of sexual desires as something bad, forbidden. Some find the frequency with which mental images [Vorstellungen] of death are combined with sexual desires striking, even as death becomes interpreted as a symbol of the moral fall (Stekel).

[This is a summary or excerpt from the full text of the book or article. The full text of the document is available to subscribers.]