This book explores the conflict between holding on to and letting go of loss, paying homage to Freud’s classic Mourning and Melancholia and building on its foundation with contemporary ideas.

Losses are met throughout life and are either accepted and mourned or resented and denied. Sometimes mourning is inappropriate or premature because losses can be prevented, and unfinished business needs to be completed. Eventually, however, accepting and mourning the loss confers enormous benefits, many of which arise from the development of symbolic thinking that enables ghosts to be turned into ancestors. These themes are explored in clinical material and in extracts from literature. They enable some of the ideas of Freud, Klein, and Bion to be expanded and updated. The book ends with an edited transcript of interviews discussing the author’s personal history in relation to his work.

With insights from across the author’s distinguished psychoanalytic career and deep understanding of literature, this is key reading for all psychoanalysts, and anyone who wants to understand loss.