Mourning and the Transformation of Object Relationships Evidence for the Persistence of Internal Attachments

Psychoanalysts from Freud up to the present have defined the goal of mourning as the detachment of libidinal ties from the deceased love object. The author reviewed recent clinical and empirical literature that casts doubt on this assumption by showing that a continuing internal relationship with the lost object is found in many bereaved individuals. These data suggest a need to reconceptualize the changes in object relationships that occur during the process of mourning. Mourning is seen as a process of inner transformation that affects both the images of the self and of the object in the mourner's inner world. It involves not the breaking of an object tie, but the transformation of that attachment into a sustaining internal presence, which operates as an ongoing component in the individual's internal world.