Psychoanalytical perspectives on death and dying: Ideas for theory and practice

Abstract

Many topics that psychoanalysis tried to explain revolve around the issue of death and dying. Not only the concept of death instinct influenced psychoanalysis, if not all areas of humanities, forever; psychoanalytic community tried to understand what death, dying and mortality meant in terms of the unconscious. Death anxiety, fear of annihilation and symbolic meanings regarding the preoccupation with death, mourning and loss have been of valuable interest and curiosity for the psychoanalytical tradition. The ideas of two important psychoanalysts on death, Sigmund Freud and Heinz Kohut will be compared and contrasted in order to have a broader understanding of death and dying and to enhance possible encounters between psychoanalysis and other humanities, as well as practice. © Inter-Disciplinary Press 2015.