By bringing together perspectives from psychoanalysis and literary
studies and considering the reciprocal relation between ideas about
mourning and our internal worlds, this book provides a guide to thinking
theoretically about loss and how we deal with it.
Rael Meyerowitz conceptualizes the work of psychic internalization
required by loss in terms of bodily digestion and metabolization. In
this way, successful mourning can be likened to the proper processing of
physical sustenance, while failed mourning is akin to indigestion, as
expressed in various forms of melancholia, mania, depression, and
anxiety. Borrowing from the methodology of literary criticism, the book
conducts a detailed treatment of these themes by drawing on a series of
psychoanalytic works, including those of Freud, Ferenczi, Karl Abraham,
Klein, Loewald, Torok, Nicolas Abraham, and Green, while paying close
critical attention to a selection of literary works such as those by
William Faulkner, Wallace Stevens, and Sylvia Plath.
Aimed at clinicians as well as readers with a more academic interest in
psychoanalytic theory and language, the close-reading format offered by
this book will also enable students in psychoanalytic and psychotherapy
courses to engage deeply with some central texts and key concepts in
psychoanalysis.