Beyond “Beyond”: Tales from the Freudian crypt

“Beyond Beyond: Tales From the Freudian Crypt” provides a critical review and assessment, first, of Sigmund Freud's metapsychological essay entitled Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), and second, of the relevant secondary literature on this essay. From the perspective of intellectual history, the author provides an overview of current debates in psychoanalysis, arguing that the theme of death plays an important role in today's theoretical culture—especially as it has been influenced by French philosophy. Meant as both an introduction and a corrective to this vast literature, “Beyond Beyond” explores the trail of Freud's death drive theory across disciplines, paying close attention to its effects in biography, biology, philosophy, and deconstruction. Dufresne's general thesis is that this endless proliferation of literature is itself the best proof of the death drive at work. His more specific argument is that Beyond the Pleasure Principle is an elaborate effort, even a strategy, that Freud adopted to insulate his “scientific” findings from a critical outside of psychoanalysis; to wit, that Freud's bizarre recourse to meta-psychology is tied up with his lifelong fear of suggestion. To this end, his dissertation is a sustained attack on the culture of psychoanalysis—theoretical, therapeutic, institutional—which is driven by what it desires and fears the most: death.