Death as the Ultimate Castration

ABSTRACT

Psychoanalysts, beginning with Sigmund Freud, have been scanting, denying, minimizing, and obfuscating the significance of fear of death in their patients and in themselves. Starting with Freud, they have tended to interpret fear of death as a displacement from other sources of anxiety, especially from castration anxiety. Conversely, some psychoanalysts and psychotherapists have denied the presence or significance of castration anxiety in their patients and in themselves. In this communication, the prevalence and significance of each of these forms of terror are examined, individually and as to their connection with one another. Considerable clinical, child observational, and literary evidence is presented that illustrates the significance and meaning of these two sources of terror within the human psyche, as well as the relationship which they have with one another.