Death drive is the psychoanalyticterm used to describe a particular kind of self-destructive drive It is a self-undermining motive. In contrast to the pleasure principle the death drive is about a constant self-undermining so as to continuously experience excitation. Freudcame to believe that the pleasure principle is in service to the death drive.

Freuddescribes the death drive in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, noting that soldiers who had experienced some kind of trauma continued to relive their trauma.

Freudcontrasts the death drive with the pleasure principle

The aim of all life is death. --- Sigmund Freud

Lacanbelieved that every drive was ultimately a death drive, and was intrinsically linked to the concept of jouissance