Death of a Parent: Openings at an Ending

Abstract

When I dealt with my mother’s death, I developed a deeper and more complex understanding of adult development from a psychoanalytic perspective. I think we have yet to adequately delineate lifelong development and, in particular, the shifts in representations of our parents as we age. I address the implications and interweaving of these shifts both emerging from and impacting psychoanalytic treatment. A case example of a woman whose representations of her parents significantly expanded after the death of her father is presented.

Keywords:

• adult development
• cyclical psychodynamics
• death
• maternal death
• parental representations

Notes

¹ Reprinted from Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings. Copyright © 1956, 1984, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust. Used with permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mary-Joan Gerson

Mary-Joan Gerson, PhD, ABPP, is an Adjunct Clinical Professor, Consultant, and Past Director of the Advanced Specialization in Couple and Family Therapy at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and a Supervisor at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies. She is the Founding President of Section VIII, Couples and Family Therapy, of Division 39, as well as Founding Co-Chair of the Committee on Psychoanalysis and Health, and the Committee on Psychoanalysis and Community. She is the author of journal articles and book chapters focused on the integration of psychoanalytic, family systemic, and attachment theory, including a full-length book, The Embedded Self, as well as numerous publications on chronic illness, adult development, and psychoanalytic activism.