Brief psychotherapy for unresolved grief in an 82-year-old-man

This man experienced in old age the torment that occurs when early fantasies that underly anxieties are enacted in real life. His elderly wife, when she became confused, ordered their son to drive him from the marital home. When the wife died, the son kept the news from the husband until after the burial. These acts created in reality the fantasy of a reversed oedipal situation, with the son succeeding as a competitor for his father's wife. If the father had resolved his own oedipal strivings satisfactorily, presumably he would not have feared such competition. But there seemed to have been some early environmental failure that had prevented him from integrating in the process of maturation his own wishes for his mother and his fears of his father. Yet, despite the patient's advanced years, the early failure situation seemed to fade as he used the therapy not only to work through his grief, but also as an opportunity to experience anew in the transference a more facilitating environmental adaptation to his needs.