Loss as the relational basis of the Self and the politics of mourning

This chapter views ‘loss’ as a process of separation necessary for the healthy development of the self, if the appropriate nurturing from the caregiver has been provided. Loss is also seen and described through two vignettes presenting what happens in the child: 1) in the lack of the essential attunement and care and proper mirroring of states for the child (similar to André Green’s ‘dead mother’ concept), but with some attachment reparation provided by other caregivers so that the internalization of a good object is partly possible, and 2) what might happen in the case of the actual physical loss of a parent, creating real object loss in the child, (after the internalization of some internal good object had been experienced in the first years of life).