Explorations of Mourning in Psychoanalysis and Literature by John Steiner

Explorations of Mourning in Psychoanalysis and Literature by John Steiner

This book explores the conflict between holding on to and letting go of loss,
paying homage to Freud’s classic ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ and building
on its foundation with contemporary ideas.
Losses are met throughout life and are either accepted and mourned
or resented and denied. Sometimes mourning is inappropriate or premature
because losses can be prevented, and unfinished business needs to be
completed. Eventually, however, accepting and mourning the loss confers
enormous benefits, many of which arise from the development of symbolic
thinking that enables ghosts to be turned into ancestors. These themes are
explored in clinical material and in extracts from literature. They enable some
of the ideas of Freud, Klein, and Bion to be expanded and updated. The book
ends with an edited transcript of interviews discussing the author’s personal
history in relation to his work.
With insights from across the author’s distinguished psychoanalytic career
and a deep understanding of literature, this is key reading for all psychoanalysts,
and anyone who wants to understand loss.

John Steiner is a training analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. He
was formerly a psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital and a psychotherapist at
the Tavistock Clinic. He is now retired from clinical practice but continues to
supervise and write. He is the author of Psychic Retreats (1993), Seeing and
Being Seen (2011), and Illusion, Disillusion, and Irony in Psychoanalysis (2020).
He has also edited and written introductions to The Oedipus Complex Today
(1989), Psychoanalysis, Literature and War (1997), Rosenfeld in Retrospect
(2008), and Lectures on Technique by Melanie Klein (2017).