Louise Braddock, 'Annihilation Anxiety and Bion's Theory of Thinking: What we (don't) need the Death Drive for'

In post-Kleinian thought a ‘deathly state of mind’, one depicting a state or enactment of mindlessness, is commonly interpreted in terms of the activity of the Death Drive where a (primary) destructive force is directed at the thinking capacities of the mind. I critically consider the theoretical basis for this interpretation in Bion’s theory of thinking, and suggest another explanation.