Even though Freud did not introduce Eros and Thanatos until 1920, precursory ideas which are not usually associated with the death drive were already present in his older writings.This article proposes a return to the origins of the theory of the death drive and of the determination of its complex double nature, intertwined with Eros. The description of the death drive as a force which is not exclusively destructive serves as a starting point for an approximation with the Lacanian notion of jouissance by the author, which allows her to think of current clinical work and construction of a contemporary theory.