How does Freud understand the concept of “mourning”?
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How does Freud understand the concept of “mourning”?
Grief is a significant human emotion which has never been extensively examined. The
understanding we have is still partially based on the observations made over 100 years ago by the
neurologist Sigmund Freud.
In 1917, in wartime and a year preceding the outbreak of the influenza pandemic that would
killed many people worldwide, Freud’s 'Mourning and Melancholia' was published. Freud's mind
based the tragic deaths of those years on the psychological legacies of tragedy and trauma.
Freud believed that sorrow and melancholia are identical but distinct reactions to loss. An
individual deals with the sorrow of losing a particular object of love by mourning, and this
process takes place in the conscious mind. Mourning is considered a positive and normal method
of suffering a loss (Freud et al., 2001). He concluded that when the individual severs this
emotional bond to the lost one and reinvests free libido in a new object, mourning comes to a
definitive end. In short, Freud asserted that to make another possible, we must sever one
connection.
On the other hand, the manner in which Freud explains melancholia is a little more complex. An
individual feels their pain in an internal manner in this response to loss. Freud claimed that the
pain of melancholy loss is felt inside the unconscious, meaning that the importance of the loss is
not always so clear to the griever, although it may still be profoundly felt by the pain.
He says that mourning is not synonymous with pathological disorders since it is a natural
reaction to events and is resolved through time in general. The person understands that the loved
person or object that is missing is really gone and turns away from reality during the time of
mourning. Dejection, lack of confidence, inability to love and inhibition of all behaviors are
characterized by this turning away from reality.
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Freud's concept of mourning is rather broad, comprising reactions to any substituted abstraction
(father-land, independence, ideal) aside from the reaction to the loss of a loved one. This
conception, which is linked to the sublimation of abandonment as an abstract notion, is not
clearly developed, but it adds important sociopolitical perspectives.
Freud emphasized an economic concept of mourning and the function of grief as it works on the
linking of traumatic memories, an operation of the ego quite unrelated to the attenuation arising
from the forgetfulness associated with the passing of time. The parallels with, and above all, the
distinctions from, melancholia, which is marked by an entirely unjustified loss of self-esteem, are
discussed immediately.
He theorizes that an individual experiences their sorrow for the loss in an outward manner during
mourning. The environment around them may seem changed, gloomy, or heartbreaking, however
they are able to shift their feelings of loss as they permit themselves to feel and process this shift:
their suffering slowly becomes a positive encouragement to substitute or step away from what
they have understood is gone. (May, 1986)
Later, in writings linked to the World War 1, Freud revised his mourning theory, redefining the
identity mechanism previously identified with melancholia as an essential element of mourning.
The endlessness of normal grief is documented in his later work. (Clewell, 2020)
What Freud implies is that if we have a chance to make sense of it, instead of keeping the pain
and distress of loss within, properly grieving a loss takes place. And by verbalizing them to those
who are genuinely listening and seeking to understand, we make more sense of our emotions.
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References
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Strachey, A. and Tyson, A., 2001. The Standard Edition Of
The Complete Psychological Works Of Sigmund Freud. London.
Clewell, T., 2020. Mourning beyond melancholia: Freud's psychoanalysis of loss. Journal of the
American Psychoanalytic Association, (52(1), pp.43–67.
May, R., 1986. Observations on the psychoanalytic theory of mourning. Smith College Studies in
Social Work, 57(1), pp.3-11.
Sigurdson, O., 2017. Mourning, Melancholy, and Humor: Psychotheology in Freud and
Söderblom1. Dialog, 56(4), pp.402-411.
