Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-05-11
DESIRE FOR DEATH
! INHERENT |NL|V|NG
Dr.. Mary Chadwick Expounds
Theory Before Psychoana-
IyticaI Association.

There Is specific instinct TO die II
every living creature.
Drawn from her experience as ;
nurse during the great influenza cpl
of newly born infants DR.. Mary Chad
wick Of London presented objective
evidence Of the inherent death wish tx
the American Psychoanalytical Asso.
citation meeting here last week.
She also has tested out with reptile:
the philosophical contention of SigmunC
Freud that every living cell Is possessed
of a drive to return to the non-livine
condition from which 1t came, but thai
in a large combination of cells, as ir
any multicellular animal a stronger
counter impulse towards living Is built
up.
The force Of the death instinct, she
explained, remains in the personality
and finds its outlet through the mus.
culature in destructive activities, such
as those of children and young animals
But when the life impulse does not gel
q good start or the musculature does
not serve as an outlet for the death
instinct force the latter may find its
outlet in suicide, fatal accident, OF
the simple act of dying without any
apparent cause at all.
Many Wish TO Die.
Hospital records" she said, "show
many patients who seem to die mainly
because they have no wish to live.
Especially during the influenza epidemic
extreme hamilton would set In with the
pneumonia and death would follow in
. few days unless the patient could be
made to want to live. Such patients
were usually Of the mother fixation
type"
The one way to save such patients,
she said, was to bring to them the
mother or q beloved relative, or to
transfer to the nurse the love for the
mother.
When very young children are
brought to q hospital suffering from
nutritional ailments, or marasmus, she
said, striking fact is that they make
no struggle to live. They have none OF
the instructive fear of death supposed
to be common to life.
DR.. Chadwick described the process Of
the death instinct as that of q return
along the road of life to the very be-
ginnings before birth. Sleep may be q
partial fulfillment and nurses making
the rounds Of a hospital ward between
and 3 am, when sleep is deepest. VIII
find many Of the patients have as
are aroused they complain and cannot
return to sleep until they have ar
ranged the limbs in the same position
again. The same phenomenon, she
said, Is observed among alternating
animals.
Special Study Of Reptiles.
DIR. Chadwick has made special
studies of reptiles. They have, she said,
periodic states of repression to a pre-
natal state, will feign death to escape
danger, are able to completely relax all
the muscles at will and show practically
all their emotions through their muscu-
lature. The condition Of the snake
when shedding its skin, she pointed out,
Il practically that Of the same reptile
in the egg. Then comes the new coat
and life again after this descent into
death.
When held tightly or placed on the
cs.6, she said, reptiles often win SIM
ply die. In captivity they refuse to
breed unless conditions are very favor
able. Reptiles, she said, sometimes be-
come deeply attached to q human being
and when these friendships are broken
simply die for no particular reason.
But DR.. Chadwick drew her principle
evidence from cases Of actual suicides
and attempted suicides or persons with
suicide phantasieS. In al cases she has
known, she said, there has heen much
illness in early infancy, 30 that the child
has been guarded from contact with
realty and become deeply attached to
the mother. Ever afterwards there Is
Q drive to escape rather than face .
difficulty. The death impulse has not
siveness and destructiveness Of healthy
children.
Such infants, she said, seem to want
TO slip away from life at the start and
show hatred Of any one trying to stir
them to activity. This feeling Is in
creased by separation from the mother
In school days and may reach its cli-
max with marriage when the individual
faces the responsibility of home and
OF working for somebody else.
Death Shows Way Out.
Then comes the death instinct and
shows the natural way out. It may be
satisfied short of actual suicide by q
suicide phantasy in which the person
tmagtnes himself dead and finds his re-
venge on those who spurred him to
enort by imagining their sorrow at their
heartless misunderstanding. This phan-
tasy may be little better than actual
suicide, DR.. Chadwick pointed out, for
II INDUCED In often 1t leads to the
schizophrenia, or dementia precox,
the mind and personality seems to die.
Otherwise 1t may lead to the victim
stumbling into fatal accident, to death
in the course Of some ordinarily nom
fatal illness, or to actual suicide. The
desire Of the victim in the death in
stinct Is to destroy his hated environ
ment, which demands Of him struggle
to live. He can destroy this environ
ment by destroying himself.
~, III, -
being is the desire for punishment for
misdeeds which will not let its victim
rest until the punishment has been ac-
cepted, said DR.. Franz Alexander of
Berlin.
This. said DR.. Alexander, is the f,Inc-
ton Of the super-ego-which used to be
called conscience before psyche analysts
began taking the soul apart to see how
1t works. It Is revealed, he said, in GER
tain dreams which apparently do not At
into the accepted theory Of the dream
as distorted wish fulfi1lment.
One such dream, he said, is so COM
mon that the majority Of the thousand
persons in the audience must have ex-
perienced 1t. 1t is known as the com
fort dream" and comes to the schoolboy
or schoolgirl who drops back to sleep
after being called In the morning. The
child dreams in those few minutes Of
being in school and going through the
days routine.
Satisfied by Dream Experience.
Specifically this doesn't look like
wish fulflllment, DR.. Alexander said,
because the child doesn't look forward
with pleasure to going to school. But
the "Super-ego" demands that 1t 60 to
school and will not let the victim rest
until something has been done about 1t.
It is satisfied by the dream experience
which is produced by the mind so that
the person can continue to sleep.
He told the eYnerience of a recent