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Linking Objects and Linking Phenomena: A Study of the Forms, Symptoms, Metapsychology, and Therapy of Complicated Mourning

Author(s) : Vamik D. Volkan

Reviews and Endorsements

Linking Objects and Linking Phenomena is a classic of the clinical psychoanalytic literature on pathological mourning. Vamık Volkan’s diagnostic distinctions and grief therapy innovations have helped innumerable patients over the years. But why now reissue this book? Could it be that, with so many losses all around us – and so many efforts to compensate for them in destructive ways – there are truths in this book to be re-learned and developed for our time? In his later work with groups in conflict, Volkan describes “chosen trauma” – the way that historical trauma shapes large-group identity toward future disaster – as an “infection of the mourning process.” Is it time now to look again at the dynamics of pathological mourning, writ large in our current era, and to mine this book for insights that might help both our patients and our communities?
M. Gerard Fromm, Ph.D., Distinguished Faculty Member, Erikson Institute, Austen Riggs Center; Fellow, American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis

In a time when neuroscience is finally catching up with the study of the grieving brain, Dr. Volkan’s classic work with patients suffering from pathological mourning is more relevant than ever. Concepts like the “linking objects,” which unconsciously keep the mental representation of the lost person alive, or the notion of “perennial mourners” unable to resolve their ambivalence to the lost person, are important for the understanding and treatment of complicated mourning. A future neuropsychoanalytic comprehension of the pain over the loss of our loved ones requires an examination of its impact on both our brain and soul.
Jose Fernando Muñoz Zúñiga, neuropsychiatrist and psychoanalyst; Associate Editor, Neuropsychoanalysis