ABSTRACT
Once we have acknowledged that death is the most certain event in everybody’s life and that, willy-nilly, man carries inside him a knowledge of this fact; once we accept that in order to fulfil his biological destiny man is endowed with a drive towards life and a drive towards death; and once we have conceded that death tends to be used by the unconscious psyche as a symbol for states of fusion, union, and of loss of identity and uniqueness, then many clinical syndromes will acquire a new meaning and significance.
