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Constelaciones melancólicas en la odisea del pensamiento [Melancholic Constellations in the Odyssey of Thought] is a psychoanalytic essay with a theoretical–clinical–philosophical approach that takes us on a dynamic journey through the enigmas of melancholy.
Utrilla Robles’s starting point and firm foundations are Freud, and Benno Rosemberg’s development of certain Freudian concepts. A tireless reader of the work of the founder of
psychoanalysis, she states: “Eighty years later, his work continues to inspire me … I always find something new when reading it” (127).
The author, through her open vision as a psychoanalyst, shows a clear commitment to understanding the inner world. Her personality comes through in her work, as lively and investigative. Her creative capacity is infectious, making us want to continue reading, as if she were talking to us, allowing us to follow her train of thought in asking: What happens in the psyche when losses are not worked through?
This excellent posthumous book explores two main dimensions: the world of melancholy and melancholy in the world. Examination of these two worlds shows both the intrapsychic dimension and its manifestation in a historical-cultural context. This book invites deep reflection and manages to instil in the reader a hopeful vision of melancholy.
Manuela Utrilla adds another, newer viewpoint to the pathological approach of melancholy as only passive longing and sadness, seeing it as a way of reconfiguring thought. It is a form of energy, a source of power and an active force. This approach allows what the author calls the work of melancholy, which includes the work of mourning and that of analysis, to be a creative act within the analytic relationship.
The central hypothesis of the book, interwoven as a guiding thread, suggests that “the work of melancholy represents the dynamic aspect of the psyche and is informative of constructive and destructive shifts” (22). At the same time, it acts as a mechanism of “work nec