Having accepted Freud's formulation of the death instinct as theoretically unassailable, Dr. Carmichael gives a report of the exposition of this theory by a physician who had no theoretical knowledge of psychoanalysis but who was himself under psychoanalytic treatment for a severe depression. During an analytic hour the physician discussed his own early interest in cases of suicide among his acquaintances and associates, his own speculation about the motivation behind the act, and his final conclusion that one of the underlying factors was a wish for death that could not always be explained on the basis of the reality situation of the individual. He had also concluded that there was an unconscious wish for death underlying certain patterns of 'normal'