Freud's concept of mourning (Essay Sample)

How Does Freud Understand the Concept of Mourning? Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Course Instructor Due Date How Does Freud Understand the Concept of Mourning? Through his revolutionary works in “Mourning and Melancholia” and “The Ego and the Id,” Freud presents varying perspectives. In his first article, he concluded that people mourn by detaching from the lost object and replacing this connection with another. In contrast, the second article demonstrated a change in his stance by highlighting that grieving is characterized by melancholic tendencies, forming a new identification using the lost object. In this regard, Freud understands mourning as a conscious individualistic process, a detachment procedure from the lost item or person, and an unconscious melancholic effort to form a new ego. Indisputably, the emphasis on self-healing and development is recurrent in Freud’s understanding. At the outset, Knutsen (2020) postulates that Sigmund Freud experienced several losses, including the death of his daughter, Sophie Freud, and grandson, Heinerle, who succumbed to the Spanish Flu and Tuberculosis, respectively. This circumstance personalized his experience of this phenomenon and subsequent research and writing. Besides, his explanation of the mourning concept highlights the importance of letting grieving people process the pain instead of intervening. Knutsen (2020) corroborates this statement by indicating that personal effort, instead of treatment, is better in handling stress and grief. Freud believed this condition should not be considered pathological but an inherent life process. On this account, Freud understood mourning as a personal journey that should not be interrupted. In his first paper on this issue, Freud described mourning as a conscious detachment from the lost object. Baker (2001) presents that loss often results in the suffering of the living person because of the intimacy and relationship between the two individuals. This suffering is inevitable and highlights the human reaction to loss, but it should not be the outcome of mourning. The result of mourning is eventual disconnection from the lost person or item and connection with a new human or possession (Baker, 2001, p. 56). Freud postulates that this is only possible when mourners use reality to counteract memory or adverse emotional reactions. For instance, when someone remembers their good experiences with the lost object, they can remind themselves that other life circumstances and relationships would be better than the dead and past ones. Thus, Freud comprehended mourning as a procedure entailing detachment and new attachment. However, Freud later deviated from this perspective to assert that mourning involves an unconscious and melancholic tendency. As described in “Mourning and Melancholia,” some mourners often personalize loss by viewing it as an attack on their ego. Moreover, in “The Ego and the Id,” Freud concluded that mourning could also involve displaying negative tendencies, such as self-esteem and misery, directed to their ego (Clewell, 2004, p. 59). This circumstance could emanate from various beliefs, such as blaming oneself for losing something or someone, feeling abandoned, and the emotional connection, mainly if it was possessive and immature. Consequently, Freud believed that most individu...