Object seeking and object loss

Theories of object loss and mourning stretch back to the beginning of psychoanalysis itself. This essay explores, through a case vignette, psychoanalytic ideas (Freud, Fairbairn, Loewald) as they relate to the treatment of a patient who is terminally ill. The author argues for practice that is dynamic in nature when treating a terminally ill patient, so that the work of mourning bodily and relational losses can take place in a context of meaning making unencumbered by previously unmetabolized losses.