Freud’s “selected fact”: His journey of mourning

In Mourning and Melancholia, written in 1915, Freud proposed a coherent and convincing theory of the nature and origin of melancholic states and offered startling new insights into the growth of the mind. Freud’s essay represented a new metapsychological formulation and the beginning of a “paradigm shift” in the still young discipline of psychoanalysis; it is recognized as containing the origins of contemporary object relations theory.

The present paper argues that this clarity of understanding and the transformative power of Freud’s essay represented the culmination of a long period of transformation within Freud himself. The evolution of Freud’s thinking and theory are considered in relation to two important periods and experiences of mourning: first, that of his “self-analysis” and mourning the death of his father, and second, his experience of disillusion and mourning in response to World War I.

The metapsychological shifts in Mourning and Melancholia will be identified, along with Freud’s synthesis of clinical observation and theory. The text challenges George Klein’s contention that Freud was never able to achieve integration between his “clinical theory” and his “metapsychological theory”. Wilfred Bion’s differentiation between the integrative thinking of the “selected fact” experience and rational logical thinking will be used to reconsider the clinical theory/metapsychological theory dichotomy.