The Struggle Against Mourning

How does the analyst help the patient to be in touch with pain and mourning? Is the relinquishment of defenses always desirable? And what is the analyst's role in the mourning process - should the analyst struggle to help patients relinquish defenses against pain and mourning, which they may experience as vital to their precarious psychic survival? Or should he or she accompany patients on their way to self-discovery, which may or may not result in the patients letting go of their defenses when faced with the pain and mourning inherent in trauma? the utilization of various defenses and the resulting unresolved mourning reflect the magnitude of the anxiety and pain that is found on the road to mourning. The ability to mourn and the capacity to bear some helplessness while still finding life meaningful are the objectives of the analytic work in this book. The special contribution of this book is the provision of a detailed description of the analyses of patients who have employed an array of defenses in order to avoid facing the painful feelings inherent in mourning in specific life situations. Often, the cases are illustrated with verbatim exchanges from the sessions. The reader is invited to be "present" and follow the intimate patient-therapist dialogue from a close perspective, learning about the problems and dilemmas of both patient and therapist when confronted with loss.