61st Annual Conference

Session 218
Mourning and Melancholia and the Group Treatment of a Borderline Patient

Chair:              

Connie Concannon, M.S.W., FAGPA, Faculty, University of California, San

Francisco, California

Presenter:           

Geoffrey Shaskan, M.S.W., CGP, Private Practice, San Francisco,

California

This paper explores Freud's and Ogden's theories regarding mourning and melancholia as they apply to the death of the group leader's co-therapist and father.  Subsequent reactions of group members and group therapist are explored.  In particular a long term group member who is a borderline patient is  focused on.

Course References:

1. Adler, G. (1996). Edited by Lifson, L. Understanding Therapeutic Action. Hillsdale, NJ: The

    Analytic Press, Inc.

2. Freud, S. (1895). Studies in Hysteria in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological

    Works of Sigmund Freud, 2. London: Hogarth Press.

3. Ogden, T. (2002). A new reading of the orgigins of object-relations theory. International Journal

    of Psychoanalysis, 83, 767-782.