| 1. | suicidal tendency or inclination; predisposition to self-destruction. |
| 2. | Psychoanalysis. an impulse to withdraw or destroy, working in opposition to forces urging survival and creation (life instinct). |
death instinct n.
A primitive impulse for destruction, decay, and death, manifested by a turning away from pleasure, postulated by Sigmund Freud as coexisting with and opposing the life instinct. Also called Thanatos.
life instinct n.
In psychoanalytic theory, the instinct of self-preservation and sexual procreation.