Explorations of Mourning in Psychoanalysis and Literature

John Steiner is a training analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Hewas formerly a psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital and a psychotherapist atthe Tavistock Clinic. He is now retired from clinical practice but continues tosupervise and write. He is the author of Psychic Retreats (1993), Seeing andBeing 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).

'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, PhD, 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

• 1. Review and Kleinian Addendum to Mourning and Melancholia 2. Before and After the Fall: Horizontal and Vertical Object Orientations in the Analysis of a Patient with Grievances 3. Mourning in Hamlet: Turning Ghosts into Ancestors 4. Injury, Rage, Grievance, and Revenge in the Wrath of Achilles 5. Successful and Unsuccessful Mourning: Revisiting Klein 6. To Modify or to Defy the Super-ego: Revisiting the Ego and the Id 7. Romantic and Mature Love: Tell me where is Fancy Bred 8. Chaos, Freedom, and Order in the Analytic Setting 9. Concrete Thinking: The Numbing Effect of Reality 10. Acquiring a Personal Identity 11. The Imposter Revisited 12. Personal Reminiscences from Interviews with Daniel Pick