Mourning and Melancholia

Mourning and Melancholia (German: Trauer und Melancholie) is a 1918 work of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.

Mourning and Melancholia
AuthorSigmund Freud
Original titleTrauer und Melancholie
CountryGermany
LanguageGerman
SubjectsMourning
Melancholia

In this essay, Freud argues that mourning and melancholia are similar but different responses to loss. In mourning, a person deals with the grief of losing of a specific love object, and this process takes place in the conscious mind. In melancholia, a person grieves for a loss he is unable to fully comprehend or identify, and thus this process takes place in the unconscious mind. Mourning is considered a healthy and natural process of grieving a loss, while melancholia is considered pathological.

References

  • Freud, Sigmund (1917). "Trauer und Melancholie" [Mourning and Melancholia]. Internationale Zeitschrift für Ärztliche Psychoanalyse [International Journal for Medical Psychoanalysis] (in German). Leipzig and Vienna: Hugo Heller. 4 (6): 288–301. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
  • Clewell, Tammy (March 2004). "Mourning Beyond Melancholia: Freud's Psychoanalysis of Loss" (PDF). Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. 52 (1): 43–67. doi:10.1177/00030651040520010601. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 7, 2012. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
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