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In his paper “En los dominios del instinto de muerte ” [Within the realm of the death instinct], he wrote: “if primary auto-destructive tendencies exist, a theory which denies them— and this is implicit in the denial of the death instinct—would be pessimistic. Such a denial would be tantamount to maintaining an illusion and passively accepting auto-destructive elements under a pleasant disguise” (Garma 1971, p. 153). For Garma, masochism is prior to sadism, and bringing the innate self-destructiveness to consciousness makes it possible to handle it in a better way, binding it towards life and orienting it towards sublimation. VI. Bd. Carlos A. Paz In his comments to Gioia’s paper, Carlos A. Paz (1977), acknowledges the relevance of questioning psychoanalytic theories and to think about psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts of the present time. Paz reviews Gioia’reading and critique of Freud’s 1937 “Analysis terminable and interminable”, where the death instinct acquires a third meaning, no longer as an element of the conflict, but rather it becomes “the principle of ‘strife’” (Freud 1937, p. 399), founding and explanatory, of the conflict. According to Gioia (1977), this does not show the force of Freud’s complex thought. Paz (1977, pp. 318-321) points out a certain simplifying distortion of Freud’s thought in Gioia’s interpretation by doing without “the Freudian notions of complex multidimensionality, complemental series, identifications, etc.. In his criticism of Gioia’s paper, Paz shows how the linear and direct use Gioia makes of some Freudian concepts, leads to a simplification that disregards the complexity Freud’s thought, specifically in regard to the relations between the Superego, the identifications, and the death drive. Paz formulates two questions, relevant to evaluations of Freud’s drive theory: 1) At which point in Freudian drive theory can one find support for what one’s statement suggests? 2) Or, in case of modifications, what are they exactly modifications of? (Paz 1977, p.318-321). VI. Be. Benzion Winograd Benzion Winograd (1977) considers that in Freudian drive theory, there are different phases and levels, but altogether it shows an essential homogeneity and lack of conceptual contradiction, and therefore, one should talk about a single theorization. He considers the Freudian theory of the death drive as the one on the highest theoretical level, and the most comprehensive, as it could explain phenomena that the two previous theories could not properly account for. Unlike Gioia, Winograd thinks that Freud did not consider the death instinct to be an autonomous source, necessary and sufficient, of aggression and destructiveness. Winograd finally indicates, based on the inter-disciplinary thinking of Eduardo Issaharoff (2001), that certain Freudian concepts of great explanatory importance, work, as far as their structuring process is concerned, in a probabilistic, and not determinist form (in the sense of being open to events, not a priori fixed). The configuration Eros – Thanatos is conceived of to work in such complex not-predetermined way.
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