ABSTRACT
Loss is one of the most universal experiences and an inevitable part of being human. Yet, the residual long-term melancholy linked with having incurred a significant loss may be a feeling that we are tempted to dissociate from. Here, we meet Nicholas again from Part I, now a young adult in therapy. When Nicholas was twelve his father died unexpectedly from a heart attack. There is a parallel here between the therapist’s and the patient’s losses and having to mourn for the possibility of a different life, one marked more by the presence of loved ones rather than by their absence. The story is also about the unspoken, and how it is possible to connect with each other’s energy and unarticulated states of mind. In traditional psychoanalysis, such tuning into the patient’s mind has been called countertransference, but within a relational framework, it is possible to conceive of this space in between two people in a more intersubjective and existential way.
