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THE FIRST part of this paper (Williams, 1958) was concerned with methods of avoiding the fear of death. A weak ego was presumed, one unable to stand the threat of extinction but equally unable to escape from it, and therefore driven to counter-phobic denial. Two main methods were described, one sadistic and the other masochistic. To recapitulate briefly: the sadist identifies with the image of immortal death, the victim being the mortal who has to suffer and die while he remains immortal. The masochist sees death as the aggressor and at the same time as a saviour who would rescue him from his mortality. The ultimate aim of both is death in ecstasy, the ecstatic condition denying the death of the body, the loss of the senses; denying the awful possibility of an imageless void. An. important factor appeared to be the complete identity of ego and body feelings together with a basic assumption of the immortality of the body-ego. It was held that threats to this assumption arising from both inner and outer perceptions of its falsity led to the identifications described.
Although it seems that the fear of death is operative in many types of disturbed people, I intend to concentrate on those whose behaviour is primarily phobic, as they seem to me to illustrate the problems involved in treatment with special clarity.
First I shall attempt to distinguish between a normal fear of death and the abnormal fear or phobia with which we are concerned. The normal fear of death arises as a spontaneous reaction to a threat to life and invokes a self-preserving response. It passes when the danger is averted or, when death appears inevitable and there is time for reflection, the individual attempts to adjust himself and his affairs to it. If he is able to do so without resort to masochistic or sadistic behaviour, it may be said that death has been accepted.
An abnormal fear of death often presents itself as a fear of life or, rather, of the dangers inherent in living fully. Sup