This paper is an attempt to explore certain personal problems of Freud which may have contributed to his formulation of the death instinct theory. This theory was first published in Beyond the Pleasure Principle in 1920, shortly after the first World War. Freud was sixty-four years old at that time and concerned with the problem of ageing. Also in this period he underwent the first of several operations for cancer of the jaw. Freud was an inveterate smoker and Ekstein believes he felt guilty about his oral strivings. The death of his second daughter, Sophie, is also advanced as a factor which influenced this train of thought on the death instinct despite the fact that Freud himself stated that Beyond the Pleasure Principle was written, in the main, before Sophie's death.

Ekstein uses Puner's rather questionable book on Freud as the authoritative source for some of his material. He concludes that the most powerful source of psychological discovery seems to be an awareness of inner struggle and conflict and the constant search for inner mastery.