The Dead Mother: The Work of Andre Green

The Dead Mother brings together original essays in honour of André Green. Written by distinguished psychoanalysts, the collection develops the theme of his most famous paper of the same title, and describes the value of the dead mother to other areas of clinical interest: psychic reality, borderline phenomena, passions and identification. The concept of the ‘dead mother’ describes a clinical phenomenon, sometimes difficult to identify, but always present in a substantial number of patients. It describes a process by which the image of a living and loving mother is transformed into a distant figure; a toneless, practically inanimate, dead parent. In reality, the mother remains alive, but she has psychically ‘died’ for the child. This produces a depression in the child, who carries these feelings within him into adult life, as the experience of the loss of the mother’s love is followed by the loss of meaning in life. Nothing makes sense any more for the child, but life seems to continue under the appearance of normality. The Dead Mother is a valuable contribution to literature on psychoanalytic and psychotheraputic approaches to grief, loss and depression.The Dead Mother: The Work of Andre Green 1st Edition and published by Routledge. ISBNs for The Dead Mother are 9781134708994, 1134708998 and the print ISBNs are 9780415165297, 0415165296. Additional ISBNs include 9780415165280, 9780203013847, 9781280177804, 9781134709007, 9781134708956.