On ‘The fear of death’ as the primary anxiety: How and why Klein differs from Freud

Abstract

It is well known that Melanie Klein held the view that 'fear of death' is the primary source of anxiety and that her position is explicitly opposed to that of Sigmund Freud, who maintained that that fear cannot in any way or form be a source of anxiety. In a previous article on Freud's Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (Blass, 2013), the author argued that, counter to what is commonly portrayed in the literature, Freud's considerations for rejecting the fear of death as a source of anxiety were based on relational and experiential factors that are usually associated with Kleinian psychoanalysis. In light of this affinity of Freud with Klein a question arises as to the actual source of their differences in this context. The present paper offers an answer to this question. The author first presents some of her earlier findings on what led Freud to reject the fear of death as a source of anxiety and then turns to investigate Klein's considerations for accepting it. This takes us beyond her explicit statements on this matter and sheds new light on the relationship of her views regarding death and anxiety and those of Freud. In turn this deepens the understanding of the relationship of Freud and Klein's conceptualizations of the psyche and its internal object relations, pointing to both surprising common ground and foundational differences.

Death obsession’s potential mediational role in the relation between pregnancy-related anxiety and prenatal obsessive-compulsive disorder

“…According to psychoanalytic theory, death anxiety is primitive (fundamental to development), and for that reason, it is likely to act as a mediator (Blass, 2014). Freud (1915Freud ( /1985 asserted that humans have no capacity to experience their own deaths, since they can only observe their own demise as spectators, with the full knowledge that they are very much alive.…”

“…Although Freud never placed death anxiety at the source of psychopathology, rather considering it as the sequel to it, later psychodynamic and death anxiety theorists such as Bowlby (1988) and Becker (1973) espoused an almost opposite view (Hoelterhoff, 2015). Klein went so far as to suggest that it is possible to experience one's own death and that the fear of death is at the base of primary anxiety (Blass, 2014). Arguing from different vantage points, successive empirical studies have in fact situated death anxiety at the core of many psychopathological conditions, including OCD (Iverach et al, 2014).…”

“…Freud tied OCD to the fear of one's own death (Meares, 2001). Theorists, from Melanie Klein, Ernest Becker, to composers of the fairly modern Terror Management Theory, place death anxiety at the base of human development (Blass, 2014). Moreover, the fundamental fear is considered to be the 'worm at the core' of many mental disorders (Blass, 2014;Iverach et al, 2014).…”

“…Theorists, from Melanie Klein, Ernest Becker, to composers of the fairly modern Terror Management Theory, place death anxiety at the base of human development (Blass, 2014). Moreover, the fundamental fear is considered to be the 'worm at the core' of many mental disorders (Blass, 2014;Iverach et al, 2014). Death anxiety also has the capacity to explain medical conditions and medically unexplained symptoms (aan de Stegge et al, 2018).…”

Conceptualizing splitting: On the different meanings of splitting and their implications for the understanding of the person and the analytic process

“…For example, in my relationship with a maternal object in my inner world, the maternal object is just as much part of myself as the self that is in relationship with it. And since the phantasized relationships between these parts are the building blocks of the mind, if in my phantasy I have attacked my maternal object, not only is part of myself under attack, put also part of my mind may be damaged (see Blass, ).…”