Mourning, Spirituality and Psychic Change: A New Object Relations View of Psychoanalysis

Susan Kavaler-Adler, PhD, ABPP, NPsyA, D.Litt
Foreword by Joyce McDougall, Ed.D.
Brunner-Routledge, 2003

In her earlier books, Dr. Kavaler-Adler identified healthy mourning for traumas and life changes as an essential aspect of successful analysis, and drew the distinction between a healthy acceptance of mourning as part of development and pathological mourning, which ‘fixes’ a patient at an unhealthy stage of development. Mourning, Spirituality and Psychic Change brings such distinctions into the consulting room, exploring how a successful analyst can help patients to utilize mourning for past troubles to move them forward to a lasting change for the better, emotionally, psychically and erotically. The author also tackles the controversial issue of spirituality in psychoanalysis, and explores how psychoanalysis can help patients come to terms with difficult issues in a time of great psychic and spiritual disturbance. These themes are brought to life via richly detailed case studies.