The Struggle Against Mourning by Ilany Kogan, Reviewed by Sheldon Goodman
“You shouldn’t turn away from treatment . Love consists in this that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.”
(Rilke, 1904, p.27).
“(A)nd I’m resolved my most inmost being shall share in what’s the lot of all mankind that I shall understand their heights and depths, shall fill my heart with all their joy and grieves” (Goethe,p.46,1808) cited in SAM, p.64
Mourning begins with a contraction. It leaves one in a darkness whose value may seem unfathomable. Kogan’s books examines the needs of mourning, your memories connected with death, and your (patient and analyst) resources for healing. This reflective process is created to help calm the overwhelming feeling that accompanies mourning and is the foundation for the grief work that follows. As she presents it in the volume under review: mourning includes overcoming pathological defenses and shedding the regressive elements that block the way to the establishment of the adult aspects of the personality when one is confronted with loss and bereavement,a ging and death, stress and trauma. Mourning involves the various functions of the ego, including the attitudes and defenses of the individual (pg.9).
The manic defense is the thread that binds various chapters in the book. Freud described the manic defense as a retreat from depression but it was left to Klein who is so often linked to this defense to define it “as a set of mental mechanisms aimed at protecting the ego from depressive as well as paranoid anxieties” (1935, p.277) to identify the underpinnings.
To accomplish her goal she uses material on the individual, communal and societal levels. Kogan’s background as an analyst, connection to a psychotherapy center in Bucharest and as a member of the advisory board for Holocaust Studies in Frankfurt and living in Israel enrich her presentations and our appreciation of the material she presents in a manner that we feel we are sitting in the consulting room. She elegantly describes her work with patients who have been through all of the anguish and heartache and confusions that are an inhereent part of the mourning process and she is so able to extend her hand to those that are experiencing what she has gone through. It is hard work to go through one’s grief when there are so many different kinds of denial at work within the culture. And this is why the volume is of such importance. She crafts a walkway through the valley of the shadow of death. The walkway has thorns and bramble bushes but she leads us to the other side, beyond grief, for those who are willing to stay the course. We learn from her that the only feelings that do not change are those that are ignored. Pain has a size and shape, a beginning and an end. It takes over only when not allowed its voice. It is not easy for those who want help mourners. Would-be comforters often feel uneasy attempting to acknowledge the loss. They may not know what to say or how to say it. Because of their shared awkwardness, mourners and comforters often collude in denying the appropriate-and normal- discomfort and pain. Often patients feel outraged at the thought that their life could be better as such a notion could feel like an insult to the deceased. Finding a context for this grief-work is one of the hardest things about being a modern mourner. The emotional chaos of bereavement makes it hard to settle down and face our lives. Between our limited involvement in ritual and a society that conspires to deny the darker side of life, there are few safe places. As a mourner you need a non-threatening framew ork for your mourning. The Hebrew phrase Mekon Hanekhama (roughly translated as a dwelling place of comfort) so beautifully captures the activity. For the mourner it is often easier to and sometimes more comfortable to rage at the living than to turn our wrath on the dead.
Kogan reveals that the creation of this volume emanates from her battles with mourning, personally and as an analyst. Her rich and varied background makes her an ideal candidate for such a project. Which we might in the briefest terms understand in the context of this book as an understanding of mourning and that it is an amalgamation of processes that one experiences in coming to grips with loss. As she understands the concept it is how well one adjusts to the reality that is faced after a loss and how adequately the adaptation process unfolds. To educate us we travel a good deal of terrain, both psychically and spatially as she has lived through losses and seperations in a variety of settings. Our journey begins with her acknowledging Freud’s contribution to the topic of mourning in his classic paper on MOURNING AND MELANCHOLIA (1917).
The volume is a compilation of papers she has written and had presented that spans the years 1993-2005. It is rich in citations and definitions that reflect what was taking place in our field over this expanse in time. To this reviewer this is both a blessing and potential failing as my experience has been that books that are a collection of the given authors writings can at times loose the thread she worked so diligently to weave. Granted she does an excellent job of introducing and summarizing each chapter. Nonetheless I will let my observation stand.
I occasionally found myself feeling awash in a sea of definitions and explanations. Kogan’s thinking is most clearly demonstrated via the rich array of clinical material she supplies for us.She is at her best in demonstrating how the analyst helps the patient experience their pain and mourning. She poses the intriguing question- is it always desireable for the analyst to help the patient relinquish their defenses?
The author provides the therapeutic service of giving us the tools to help not only one who is grieving the loss of a loved one, but its principles apply to anyone facing loss of any kind which has caused major disruptions in their life. Given the world of the twenty first century and all the appreciated gift for us living in the United States and especially for the residents of Israel the book is to be cherished and a gain for our society as a whole.
Sheldon M. Goodman