415: Mourning and Melancholia Revisited

Course Description

Instructors

Ben Kafka, Ph.D.
Cassie Kaufmann, Ph.D.

April 21 – June 16, 2025
Mondays, 8:35 – 10:00 pm

No class: 5/26

Co-requisites

Candidates must have or have had at least two cases in supervised psychoanalysis to be eligible for upper level courses.

Course Description

In this eight week course we will study in depth Freud’s classic paper on mourning which will serve as the foundation and starting point for our discussion.  After a careful reading of Freud’s paper and Thomas Ogden’s brilliant revisiting of it, we will explore a number of papers that amplify and extend Freud’s own work, starting with Melanie Klein and edging our way into more contemporary literature concluding with contemporary Kleinian literature that offers a clinical exegesis of the distinctions between mourning and melancholia.

Educational Objectives:

Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:

  1.  explain the place of mourning in both Freud and Klein’s theory of the mind
  2.  pinpoint the distinctions between mourning and melancholia and to describe them each in terms of the different ways they present clinically as well as the implications they each have for mental life.

Evaluation Method

Each student’s participation in class discussion and his or her demonstration of understanding of the course objectives and reading material is assessed in a written evaluation by the instructor(s).

Schedule of Classes & Course Readings

These articles are protected under relevant copyright regulations. They are available in the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Electronic Reserve for your convenience, and for your personal use.

READINGS ARE CONFIRMED THRU SESSION FIVE.

CLASS 1: April 21, 2025
REQUIRED READING

Freud, S. (1917). Mourning and Melancholia. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, 237-258.

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CLASS 2: April 28, 2025
REQUIRED READING

Ogden, T.H. (2002). A New Reading of the Origins of Object-Relations Theory. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 83(4):767-782.

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CLASS 3: May 5, 2025
REQUIRED READING

Klein, M. (1940). Mourning and its Relation to Manic-Depressive States. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 21:125-153.

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CLASS 4: May 12, 2025
REQUIRED READING

Klein paper, continued.

Steiner, J. (2005). The Conflict between Mourning and Melancholia. Psychoanal Q., 74(1):83-104.

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CLASS 5: May 19, 2025
REQUIRED READING

Sodre, I. (2015). The Wound, The Bow and the Shadow of the Object: Notes of Freud’s ‘Mourning and Melancholia.’ In: Imaginary Existences. New York: Routledge, pp. 161-182.

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CLASS 6: June 2, 2025
REQUIRED READING

Green, A. (1986). The dead mother. In: On Private Madness. The Hogarth Press Ltd.: London. [Read pp. 142-155]

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Joseph, B. (1982). Addiction to Near-Death. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 63:449-456.

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CLASS 7: June 9, 2025
REQUIRED VIDEO

von Trier, Lars. (2011). Melancholia. Magnolia Pictures.

PLEASE WATCH on your streaming service before class.

CLASS 8: June 16, 2025
REQUIRED READING

Zeavin, L., McClure, M. M., Hamer, F. & Davids, M. F. (2022) Mourning in America. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 70:939-968.

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