ABSTRACT

In revisiting the paper “Mourning and Melancholia” which has richness and resonance still today, this chapter looks at loss from the perspective of the carer as well as the person with dementia, both in terms of grief and denial but also in terms of absence of grief due to the loss of awareness. A more organizational perspective also addresses why so-called caring institutions and society as a whole often fail to care well enough to support this grief.