Love and Horror in Grief: An Autopsychography on the Loss of a Beloved Animal Companion

Using an autopsychographic approach as advocated by Yuan and Hickman, this article demonstrates the ways in which love and horror are implicated in one another during the experience of grief at the loss of a companion animal. The relationship between the human and the companion animal is explored through Lacan's understanding of love premised on lack and an ethical relationship to the lack in the other. When that other dies, horror may be an intrusive emotion premised on a feeling of the uncanny with the familiar becoming unfamiliar. These experiences are then rearticulated in the context of the human-animal relationship through psychoanalytic and existential themes, arguing that the loss of such a relationship needs to be appreciated in theorizations about grief and meaning within the humanistic tradition.