The present work aims to explore different senses of the psychoanalytic concept death instinct. To this end, we chose four authors with unique perspectives: S. Freud, M. Klein, S. Ferenczi and D. W. Winnicott. In Freud, we find a first version of Thanatos associated with the idea of a return to the inorganic, followed by mutations that culminate in the consolidation of the concept as an innate, inexorable destructive force, and the greatest hindrance to human endeavors. Klein takes the death instinct by this facet of aggressiveness, and gives it great importance as a promoting force of anxieties that, in turn, engender the use of defense mechanisms, and finally the installation of pathological organizations from failures or exaggerations in the application of such defenses. In Ferenczi, the death instinct is relegated to a supporting role, and we note the subordination of the concept to the influence of the environment, as the Hungarian author starts, in the later part of his work, to conduct his theoretical and technical propositions through the relational, intersubjective field. Finally, Winnicott rejects Thanatos altogether, presenting alternatives such as the regression to dependence; the idea of trauma by deprivation; and coining an original theory of aggressiveness, which distances it from the instinctual sphere. Over four chapters, we explore how the chosen authors work on each of these aspects, highlighting similarities and differences between their perspectives in order to reach a deeper global understanding of the place of the death drive in psychoanalytic theory and clinic.