Drawing on André Green’s paper on “The Dead Mother” (1983), including his concept of the “framing structure,” the author presents a detailed clinical case to illustrate the enactment in analysis of partially unrepresented states of absence and deadness, as they emerge in the patient, in the analyst, and in the relationship between them. The author suggests that with some patients a “false-framing structure,” discoverable in analysis, has developed that encloses, disavows, and defends against a void in the patient’s maternal and self-representations. The process of the analysis, painful for both parties, is discussed.