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The author seeks to retrace his development from On Private Madness to Pourquoi les pulsions de destruction ou de mort? [Why the destructive or death drives?]. He revisits the stages of the journey and refers back to the clinical picture concerning white psychosis (a work in collaboration with J.-L. Donnet). Subsequently, Freud’s introduction of the destructive or death drives must be considered (2007-2010). Finally, the author presents some reflections from Illusions et Désillusions du travail psychanalytique [Illusions and disillusions of psychoanalytic work] (2010). Through a more detailed study, he retraces the early stages of psychic development according to Freud. He then considers Freud’s standpoint on the special domain of the destructive drives, namely culture. The connections between the earliest endeavours and the final elaborations seek to bring out some consistency.