Explorations of Mourning in Psychoanalysis and Literature
Turning Ghosts into Ancestors
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publishing:29th Jul '26
£34.99
This title is due to be published on 29th July, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
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 deep understanding of literature, this is key reading for all psychoanalysts, and anyone who wants to understand loss.
'A central pillar of the psychoanalytic vision of human experience, often overlooked in favor of themes that attract more popular attention, is how each of us deals with the losses that inevitably accompany growth at every step in development. These losses, of the relationships that taught us to love and of our own omnipotent power to create them, must be mourned if we are to be able to live freely and effectively. This understanding, first suggested by Freud and later elaborated in the work of Melanie Klein, Hans Loewald, and others, remains incomplete. In this volume, John Steiner brilliantly and movingly continues the conversation. It is essential reading for anybody interested in appreciating the best that psychoanalysis has to offer.'
Jay Greenberg, Ph.D., faculty, William Alanson White Institute, former editor, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, recipient, 2015 Mary S. Sigourney Award.
'In this impressive and illuminating work, John Steiner covers a wide range of topics with great insight and intelligence. His exploration of the processes involved in mourning are particularly useful, important and original, but the book also contains fascinating chapters in which he uses references to the work of Shakespeare or Homer to illustrate and enrich his psycho-analytic insights
Michael Feldman, training analyst, British Psychoanalytical Society
'This book has a lustrous quality. It is simply the best written on its topic.
With unrivalled experience and remarkable breadth and depth of sensibility, knowledge and intellectual capacity, Steiner builds his framework joining the insights of Freud and Melanie Klein with those of World Literature.
With this, step by step, Steiner guides his reader through what is one of the hardest tasks of the human condition… the need to grieve if we are to recover truly from our losses, yet the great difficulty of what this involves.
Steiner identifies the gaps in our understanding of what is involved. He endorses the necessity of protest against the senses of injury and injustice. As he writes, a quiet, profound sense of humanity is revealed.'
David Taylor, psychoanalyst, Visiting Professor UCL Psychoanalysis Unit.
ISBN: 9781041201199
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
230 pages