2006

Psychological theorists, researchers, and clinicians have conceptualized models for understanding and treating grief and mourning since Freud’s instrumental article entitled “Mourning and Melancholia” published in 1917. The traditional model of grieving is heavily influenced by psychoanalytic assumptions. Freud understood grief as an intrapsychic process of decathexis, the painful divestment of libidinal energy from memories of the lost object. As ties are surrendered to the lost object, normal functioning is restored and freedom to love again gradually returns. Object relations and attachment theory have therefore, contributed to our traditional model of mourning. George Hagman (2001) offers a comprehensive summary of the historical and recent developments in psychoanalytic theory and treatment of bereavement and mourning. He discusses the “component assumptions that comprise the standard model” (p. 17). The traditional aspects of this model include a number of conclusions about grief that have sustained over time in clinical circles.