Abraham's discovery of the 'bad mother'. A contribution to the history of the theory of depression

The International Journal of Psycho-analysis
U May

Abstract

The author shows how, after Freud struggled in vain from the 1890s to develop a theory of depression, Abraham succeeded for the first time in finding an approach to the understanding of depression a few years before the publication of Freud's 'Mourning and melancholia'. It is contained in his study of the painter Giovanni Segantini (1911), which also includes a description, imbued with a new atmospheric quality, of the mother-son relationship that centres on the concept of the 'bad mother'. The author points out that Abraham's 'good/bad' dimension is effectively absent from Freud's published work up to 1911 and is also at variance with his view of the relationship between son and mother. In later contributions, too, Abraham maintained that unconscious hate directed at the mother, who is experienced as 'bad' but longed for as 'good', was a central factor in the aetiology of depression, a view he had to defend vis-à-vis Freud. The author contends that in the Segantini paper Abraham was describing an inner world similar to that evinced by the work of Melanie Klein and significantly different from Freud's. It is characterised by hate, revenge, death wishes and guilt feelings on the one hand and tranquillity and inner peace on the o...Continue Reading

References

Jan 1, 1995·Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association·M I Good
Jun 5, 2007·Neuro-Chirurgie·I BettaiebK Zitouna
Jul 5, 2007·Journal of Lipid Research·Barbara P AtshavesFriedhelm Schroeder

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Citations

Jul 20, 2016·The Psychoanalytic Quarterly·Cecilio Paniagua
Jan 1, 2009·Journal of the History of Biology·Ricardo Noguera-Solano, Rosaura Ruiz-Gutiérrez
Jun 1, 2005·American Journal of Medical Genetics. Part B, Neuropsychiatric Genetics : the Official Publication of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics·Peter Propping
Sep 10, 2005·Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics : the Official Journal of the British Dietetic Association·J AbayomiG Bagnall
Sep 11, 2018·Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics : CQ : the International Journal of Healthcare Ethics Committees·Alena Buyx, David Birks
Jan 3, 2013·Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities : JARID·A C RowsellG H Murphy

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