ABSTRACT

The maintenance of the boundaries enabled him to replay his past hopes and disappointments. Admission of this loss at such a deep level permitted me to feel very touched by him. It seemed that this series of sessions really had begun to make a psychological difference. In the psychotherapy literature on bereavement the focus is usually on bereaved relatives. Far less attention has been paid to the bereavement experienced by those facing death. The psychological tasks of dying need to be given a similar degree of attention as other transitional life events. The analytic undertaking is to release the person from the lingering regrets and desires of childhood, which may dominate the psyche and inhibit psychological growth. ‘The approach of the end of life is often prefigured by certain symbols, which in normal life also proclaim changes of psychological condition – rebirth symbols such as changes of locality, journeys and the like’.