Who Suffered More? Rivalry for the Right to Be Loved: Discussion of “Who Has the Right to Mourn?: Relational Deference and Rankings of Grief”

Abstract

In this discussion of Peskin’s paper on who has the right to mourn (this issue), I explore what it means to “have a right.” When others reject our offerings, we may lose a sense of right to express ourselves and to be loved. Hierarchical rankings of grief, based on the image of limited good, help guarantee the restoration of this forfeited right to express our sorrows and be received by a caring witness. The vignette from Alice Kaplan’s memoir depicts not only how a young girl was prevented from mourning her father’s death by her mother, but also how a mother’s envy of her daughter may become its own source of loss and grief. The rivalry of Alice’s mother with her daughter for a “tragic childhood,” paralleling the rivalry underlying the rankings of grief, reflect a more widespread desperation for the precious right to openly express sorrow and receive the consoling reassurances of loving solace.

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Peter Shabad

Peter Shabad, Ph.D., is Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Northwestern University Medical School. He is on the Faculty of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Core Faculty of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP). Dr. Shabad is co-editor of The Problem of Loss and Mourning: Psychoanalytic Perspectives (IUP, 1989) and is the author of Despair and the Return of Hope: Echoes of Mourning in Psychotherapy (Aronson, 2001). Dr. Shabad is currently working on a new book entitled Seizing The Vital Moment: Passion, Shame, and Mourning to be published Routledge. He is the author of numerous papers and book chapters on diverse topics such as the psychological implications of death, loss and mourning, giving and receiving, shame, parental envy, resentment, spite, and regret. Dr. Shabad has a private practice in Chicago in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy.