ABSTRACT
The dead mother complex is a revelation of the transference. The transformation in the psychical life, at the moment of the mother’s sudden bereavement when she has become abruptly detached from her infant, is experienced by the child as a catastrophe; because, without any warning signal, love has been lost at one blow. If the Oedipus complex is reached and even bypassed, the dead mother complex will give it a particularly dramatic aspect. The first and most important is a unique movement with two aspects: the decathexis of the maternal object and the unconscious identification with the dead mother. The decathexis, which is principally affective, but also representative, constitutes a psychical murder of the object, accomplished without hatred. One will understand that the mother’s affliction excludes the emergence of any contingency of hatred susceptible of damaging her image even more. The infant has made the cruel experience of his dependence on the variations of the mother’s moods.
