Page - 252 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

252 Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits Struggle between the life and death wish Hanna Segal discusses how the life wish can automatically determine the behav- ior even of a suicidal adolescent during a suicide attempt, allowing them to remain alive. In her essay “On the Clinical Usefulness of the Concept of Death Instinct” (1993), Segal contends that it is not death which causes pain, but rather the wish to live. She begins with a quote from Martin Eden, a novel by Jack London: Martin commits suicide by drowning. As he sinks he automatically tries to swim. “It was the automatic instinct to live. He ceased swimming, but the moment he felt water rising above his mouth his hands struck out sharply with a lifting movement. ‘This is the will to live’, he thought, and the thought was accompanied by a sneer.” (London 1909, quoted in Segal 1993, 55) In this description, Jack London reveals the hate and distaste Martin feels for the part of him that wants to live. “The will to live,” he thought disdainfully. . . . “The hurt was not death” was the thought that oscillated through his reeling consciousness. It was life – the pangs of life – this awful suffocating feeling. It was the last blow life could deal him. (London 1909, Ibid) London shows Martin’s derision for his own wish to live on. The pain of life – this awful, pressing feeling that Martin Eden feels at the end of his life. Hanna Segal interprets the conflict between the life and death wish by contending that all pain comes from life and vitality. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), Freud describes the death instinct as a biological drive to return to the inorganic. He also mentions the Nirvana principle as a formula for forgetting everything – an important motive in suicidal thoughts. The life instinct aims towards life and reproduction (thus including sexuality). The death wish aims towards destruc- tion, dissolution and death. Freud developed the concept of the death instinct in explaining the phenomenon of repetition compulsion, masochism and the murder- ous superego of a melancholic person. The destructive and traumatizing influence a suicidal parent can have on a child is revealed in many case studies spanning two or more generations. A child who has to live for years with the suicidal threats of a mother or father is placed under enormous pressure. The parent is conveying to the child that he is not a sufficient reason for supplying life with meaning, which can be taken as an erasure of the child’s right to exist. Here is an example of one suicidal adolescent who turned to the adolescent department at the Tavistock Clinic, followed by reflections of John Cleese (of Monty Python’s Flying Circus) on the traumatizing experiences con- nected with thoughts of his mother.