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Love with the Death Drive - Todd McGowan, PhD (Webinar live online)
2026-27 Friday Night Guest Lecture Series
Love throws off our psychic equilibrium. Even the best romantic relationship disturbs the ability to sustain one’s everyday existence as one did before. It is precisely this disturbance that makes love appealing and that draws us to it repeatedly. The disturbance of love provides a unique insight into the functioning of what Freud calls the death drive. When falling in love, we unconsciously opt for a psychic disturbance that involves elevating a singular object to a sublime status and giving it sway over the entire field of objects. My argument is that this is what occurs in the death drive: Through an act that sabotages our self-interest, we create a sublime object that orients our desire as a result of its sublimity. Love is the most revelatory manifestation of the death drive, a manifestation that shows what we gain psychically from the loss that this drive enacts on us.
Target Audience
______ Introductory ___X___ Intermediate ______ Advanced
Learning Objectives
- Identify how the death drive functions and the psychic appeal that it generates.
- Apply the concept of the death drive to love relationships.
- Assess when the death drive is at work in a relationship and how it is operative.
Todd McGowan, PhD, teaches theory and film at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Self-Sabotage: How We Try Not to Flourish, Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity, Embracing Alienation, The Racist Fantasy, Emancipation After Hegel, Capitalism and Desire, Only a Joke Can Save Us, and other works. He is also the cohost of the Why Theory podcast with Ryan Engley.
Austen Riggs Center Inc. adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Medical Education. All those at Austen Riggs Center involved in the planning of this activity, including the presenter(s) listed above, report they have no relevant financial relationships with an ineligible company*.
The views and opinions expressed in this presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the Austen Riggs Center.
Available Credit
- 1.50 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
ACCME - As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this learning activity for a maximum of 1.50 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
- 1.50 APA
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this learning activity for 1.50 continuing education credit(s) (CE) for psychology. Continuing Education (CE) credits for psychologists are provided through the co-sponsorship of the American Psychological Association (APA) Office of Continuing Education in Psychology (CEP). The APA CEP Office maintains responsibility for the content of the programs.
Austen Riggs Center, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0115.
- 1.50 ASWB-ACE
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organization, not individual courses, are approved under this program. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Austen Riggs Center maintains responsibility for this. Social workers completing this Online live will receive 1.50 continuing education credit(s).
Austen Riggs Center, Inc is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0843.
- 1.50 Contact Hours/ ParticipationA certificate of attendance for all Learners.