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This volume is the latest in the Essential Papers in Psychoanalysis series. Frankiel has collected what she considers to be “the most significant contributions to the psychoanalytic and psychological understanding of the effect of object loss on adults and children” (p. 2). Although one might wonder how “essential” some of her selections are, or might bemoan the omission of other contributions the reader believes to be truly essential, on balance this is a thoughtfully organized and comprehensive compendium of many of the most important papers relevant to our understanding of the multiform effects of object loss and its vicissitudes as manifested in the clinical situation. In her introduction, Frankiel succinctly articulates her theoretical position that “the consequences of object loss are determined by a combination of potentially devastating processes… [that] interact with individual differences in talent and endowment and with the presence or absence of suitable replacement objects and help at the time of the loss” (p. 3).
The book is organized into six sections: Grief Observed; Theoretical Foundations; Characteristics of Pathological Mourning; Technical Issues in the Treatment of Complicated Mourning in Adults; Mourning in Children, Adolescents and Adults; and Object Loss and Creativity (to me the weakest section in an otherwise extremely satisfying anthology). These section comprise a total of 27 chapters, most of which contain the original papers in toto. Some contain the relevant sections of longer papers; for example, Frankiel includes only “Addendum C: Anxiety, Pain and Mourning” from Freud's Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. In addition she offers her own introductory notes to the chapters; these serve as rousing aperitifs to stimulate the reader and help organize his assimilation of the offerings which follow. (My own oral incorporative and cannibalistic allusions no doubt are derived from the classic