title: [A "clear reaction formation against death drive hypotheses" (Brun 1953): On one strand of the reception of Freud's death drive concept in German-speaking countries].
abstract: If the death drive hypothesis is understood as a possible concept for self-destructive clinical phenomena, one can state that before World War II a number of analysts took it up quite naturally, while others raised objections. After the break caused by the Nazi regime the situation suddenly changed. Brun's formulation, quoted in the title of this paper, was a non-intended, but accurate diagnosis of a certain strand in the history of the reception of Freud's death drive concept in the time before, but even more so in the first decades after, 1945. The author takes it as a symptom that for decades there was an uncritical acceptance of Brun's "critical", though in fact biased, study which claimed that the death drive hypothesis was and continued to be refuted in every respect. Taking the example of a few protagonists of the postwar period, she sees hints of an initial lively and positive interest which was then followed by a (relatively) quick distancing.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Frank
mesh_terms: D005619:Freudian Theory; D049673:History, 20th Century; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000266:history*