This work purports to revisit the notion of death instinct within a theoretical framework based upon Balint’s theory of the basic fault, Ferenczi’s late studies on the relational contexts of identification processes and Green’s reflections on the work of the negative. Crossing these three perspectives it is possible to claim that the unconscious vector of the transgenerational transmission of trauma is the condition in which the basic fault area constitutes a fundamental element of the intersubjective field. The joint unconscious work of the basic fault area and negative identifications breeds processes of instinctual defusion, split and idealisation that free significant amounts of death instinct, hate and envy which constitute insidious nuclei of destructiveness. The effectiveness of these hypotheses is proved through the exam of two clinical cases.
Keywords: Death instinct, basic fault, transgenerational, negative identification, wok of negative, defusion.