Appréhender sa mort en se séparant de la toute-puissance. Apports freudiens

It is not obvious to recognize that we are mortal. Actually, our death is opposed to our wishes of all strength. Generally, something, which is opposed to our all strength, offends the narcissism or wounds it. It can even produce trauma. Nevertheless, in life, different realities (discovery of the object, of the otherness of sexes…) confront the limitation of our all strength and to the separation of it, which is underlained. It's the ego, the conscious, which is able to acknowledge and work out our own death. In unconscious, self-death could not be represented. Because it works in primary process, the unconscious behaves as if it's immortal. In this way, Freud thinks death anxiety is an anxiety of psychic death, which appears because the super-ego leaves the ego. A collapse of the super-ego, in its functions of all protection, would produce a death of the ego. Renouncing our own all strength, by separating the grandiose figures of the super-ego, would bring more flexible defences. In conclusion, we consider some practical consequences of these theoretical points in the accompaniment of patients who are critically ill.