Oedipal grief

This paper concerns a common clinical picture, one that is seen particularly clearly in young men. It is a picture which, within a traditional psychoanalytic framework, has much to do with that set of mental structures referred to as the superego and with the patterns which follow from the oedipal period of development. Using two case examples, this paper suggests the outlines of a treatment strategy and looks at some of the theoretical issues involved (in particular, the contribution of an object relations emphasis to classical theory). It argues for the importance of grief in the oedipal dilemma and suggests that the role of grief in the formation and maintenance of morbid conscience can overshadow that more familiar explanation, the struggle with one's own forbidden wishes.