André Haynal invites us to rediscover the universality of depressive affects in development, linked to movements of separation and differentiation. He notes the central role of the work of mourning in the analytic process, and links the traumatic dimension, narcissism and the Oedipus situation. “The meaning of despair” is thus approached in relation to Hilflosigkeit, its retroactive phantasmatic resonances, and a dialectical tension with phantasies of omnipotence.