Discussion of Arlene Kramer Richards’s “The Death Instinct and Its Vicissitudes”

Abstract

Conceptions of death are influenced by childhood experiences, including the
death of loved ones and events surrounding them. The example of Little Hans
is given. Childhood fantasies of death commonly connect it to sleep and this
equation remains in the unconscious and is employed in the illusions which
aid in the denial of death as a reality. Death can represent and be personified
by both mother and father. The fear of death is an important clinical entity
that ranges from the mild to severe and is not infrequently connected to time
and bodily anxieties. The increased reality of death with age and experience
is a psychological challenge which can have adaptive aspects.