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How can the dying forgive the living their happiness? This is one of the many intriguing and difficult questions raised in Psychoanalytic Approaches to Forgiveness and Mental Health , an outstanding collection of twelve essays edited by Ronald Britton and Aleksandra Novakovic. The contributors comprise a distinguished group of analysts, including major representatives of the Kleinian tradition. It is not possible here to do justice to the entire collection; moreover, among the most innovative, if not idiomatic voices in the volume, the chapters by Karl Figlio, Francis Grier and Ignês Sodré do not invite paraphrase. Despite these provisos, I believe the quality and diversity of the collection will be self-evident in my comments.
In the opening chapter, Novakovic has interesting things to say about early infantile life, Oedipal conflict, and loss and death as everyday domains of forgiveness. She introduces several stimulating lines of inquiry, including: the act of forgiveness and the survival of the object at the beginning of life; the integration of different parts of the self (injured and injuring; offended and offender; repentant and impenitent); and the idea of forgiveness as a way of showing mercy. Novakovic gives us a lot to think about. Together with the idea that compassion and clemency embody a forgiving disposition, her emphasis in the opening chapter
on the internal interface between injury and generosity is particularly well placed as an entrée to the collection. The chapter sets the scene for what follows, framing the question of forgiveness in terms of the connection Klein established between early anxieties and defences on the one hand and, on the other, the Oedipus complex.
The most successful chapters in the book are rigorous about feeling. This is brilliantly showcased in Francis Grier’s chapter on sexual betrayal and forgiveness in Mozart’s operatic music. By his own admission, Grier is allergic to psychobiography, and in this chapter, he delibera