Neuroscience and the Death Drive: The Nature of Symptoms, from Formulation to Treatment

In this book, Adrian Perkel seeks to expand upon Freud’s theory of the death drive by locating it within modern neuroscience, arguing for the centrality of the aggressive drive in the formation of mind, and the genesis of symptoms and psychopathology.

Adrian Perkel is a registered practising clinical psychologist based in Cape Town, South Africa. He has been lecturing, writing, supervising other professionals, and practicing psychotherapy since 1989. His work is deeply informed by psychoanalysis and neuroscience. He is the author of Unlocking the Nature of Human Aggression: A Psychoanalytic and Neuroscientific Approach (2023).