ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author examines the effects of mourning on the drive organization, when processes of sublimation or somatization follow an experience of mourning. By sublimation, the author also mean processes of creation. Sublimation is one of the ordinary transformations of the drive, while creation is an exceptional vicissitude. Sublimation can come into play and facilitate a certain degree of release from the traumatic situation, or, alternatively, the movement may cause a more or less massive disorganization opening up the way to more or less serious somatizations. The crisis of mourning can lead to somatic reactions of two different kinds. The experience of mourning provokes an unfurling of instinctual forces; the violence is the symptomatic indication of it. But violence is also one of the characteristics of somatization and, to a lesser degree, of sublimation. According to Claude Smadja, operational functioning results from incredible violence that is exerted on psychic life, and, somatization develops, on the patient’s organic functions.
