Passion, desire, perversion: Love and death in psychoanalysis

Abstract

This paper contrasts full passion with what I am calling empty passion. As examples of full passion, Melanie Klein’s lovehate, Kristeva’s maternal passion, Žižek’s political passion, and the passion of friendship are discussed in relation to empty passion, a narcissistic desire to fill a lack or a hole at the center of being. This empty passion is related to the Lacanian demand to serve or to become the desire of the Other and to André Green’s concept of the psychic dilemma of the Dead Mother. Clinical and literary examples of empty passion are provided as illustrations.