The death instinct

Suppression of emotions, physiology, and illness

Abstract

Freud's concept of the death instinct is revisited and related to current research in cell biology and psychoneuroimmunology. Freud argued that externalisation of the death instinct in the form of aggressive and destructive expression is necessary in order to protect against our primary impulse to self-destruction. The implications of suppression-repression for disease development and/or progression are discussed from a psychoanalytic and empirical research perspective.