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The author describes three figures of the psychic void: that of mourning, that of the “marathon writer” described by Murakami, and that of a galley slave at work who self-mutilates. Unlike the work of mourning, which has a generative virtue and allows the emptiness to emerge, the other figures belong to the self-calming processes as conceived by Gérard Szwec, which are both the result of a psychic void and an active means of trying to make the void. According to the author, the self-calming process is a manifestation of the repetition compulsion, the ultimate goal of which is the destruction of the unsatisfactory primary maternal object as the first negative trace of hatred. It then opens onto the psychic void left by a mother who must be emptied/is never emptied; it is an endless attempt to erase the empty traces of a mechanically calming object. This negative defensive procedure toward the object turns around on the subject in a self-sadistic, anaesthetic form, psychically emptying him.