The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

ISSN: 0020-7578 (Print) 1745-8315 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ripa20

In conversation: Freud, Abraham and Ferenczi on

“Mourning and Melancholia” (1915–1918)

Ulrike May

To cite this article: Ulrike May (2019) In conversation: Freud, Abraham and Ferenczi on
“Mourning and Melancholia” (1915–1918), The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 100:1,
77-98, DOI: 10.1080/00207578.2018.1556070

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2018.1556070

Published online: 22 Feb 2019.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1873

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 2 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ripa20
INT J PSYCHOANAL
2019, VOL. 100, NO. 1, 77–98
https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2018.1556070

In conversation: Freud, Abraham and Ferenczi on “Mourning

and Melancholia” (1915–1918)*
Ulrike May
Berliner Psychoanalytisches Institut, Karl-Abraham-Institut, Berlin

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article concentrates on Freud’s draft of “Mourning and “Mourning and Melancholia”;
Melancholia,” written in 1915 and published in 1996. After theory of depression;
presenting a summary of the main theses of Freud’s draft, Ferenczi; Abraham;
narcissistic identification;
Abraham’s and Ferenczi’s reactions to the text are discussed as well
orality
as Freud’s response to their comments. In addition to reviewing
Freud’s partial adoption of Ferenczi’s introjection and his reluctance
towards Abraham’s “mouth eroticism and sadism,” the article
considers the question of whether and to what extent his disciples’
interjections—particularly Abraham’s approach—made their way
into the final version of “Mourning and Melancholia.” The article
closes by integrating the notion of narcissistic identification, which
forms the core of Freud’s understanding of depression, and his
study of the “preliminary stages of love,” written the same year,
into a conceptualization of the narcissistic relationship between
subject and object. Special attention is paid to the clinical relevance
of the difference between narcissistic and libidinal object cathexis,
which Freud had introduced.

A brief survey of the history of narcissistic identification may serve as an introduction

into the subject matter. According to my research, Viktor Tausk and Karl Landauer
were instrumental in developing the notion of narcissistic identification (May 2016).
As shown in a recently discovered auto-abstract, Tausk suggested that identification
be attributed to the narcissistic stage as early as 1913 (Tausk 1913). The first to use
the term “narcissistic identification” was Karl Landauer, who presented it in a paper pub-
lished in September 1914 (1914, 133). Landauer argued that narcissistic identification
was a regressive defence: instead of experiencing a conflict with the object, the
subject regresses to the narcissistic stage and forms a narcissistic identification with
the object. Landauer used a case of schizophrenic psychosis to illustrate this process.
Freud’s remarks, made in the Vienna Group in January 1915, were in line with Landauer’s
ideas (Min.4, 279; 1915d, 269, passim).1 On 3 February 1915, Freud linked narcissistic
identification with depression (Min. 4, 281). He saw the melancholic’s self-devaluation

CONTACT Ulrike May may.tolzmann@t-online.de Taunusstr.12, 12161 Berlin, Germany

*Translated by Bettina Mathes.
1
The Minutes of the Vienna Psycho-Analytic Association (Nunberg and Federn 1962–1975) are abbreviated as Min. followed
by the number of the volume. In order not to overly clutter the article with bibliographic references, a detailed chron-
ology of events (including all sources) mentioned in this article can be downloaded from www.may-schroeter.de/index.
php?i =188.
© 2019 Institute of Psychoanalysis
78 U. MAY

as a narcissistic identification with precisely the love-object by whom the subject feels
devalued. Freud felt that this idea solved the riddle of melancholia. On 7 February
1915, he placed it at the centre of the draft of “Mourning and Melancholia.” Freud’s
draft has received little attention, perhaps due to its rather late (1996) discovery and
its surprising content.2 The short text, no more than two pages long, was written in Feb-
ruary 1915, but only published in 1996 as part of the correspondence between Freud and
Ferenczi (F/Fer II, 46–49).3
In this draft, Freud narrows the focus of his theorizing about the psychic aetiology of
depression to one depressive symptom, namely self-devaluation. Moreover, Freud does
not once mention orality, oral erotism, oral stage, oral-cannibalistic stage, oral devouring,
introjection or oral instinctual aims. Neither does he speak of ambivalence or sadistic
instinctual aims even though he had just introduced both a sadistic-anal organization
(1913) and a “constructed” oral “or, as it might be called, cannibalistic” stage whose
aim, which consists in the incorporation of the object, he described as the “prototype”
for all “later” identifications (1905, 198; 1918, 106–107). Thus, rather than tracing depress-
ive self-devaluation back to the vicissitudes of the oral and anal stages, Freud now saw it as
a pathological regressive change in the relation between the ego/subject and its object, a
regression of which the subject remained entirely unaware. In his draft of “Mourning and
Melancholia,” Freud made a distinction between the deformation of the ego through nar-
cissistic identification and his notion of hysterical identification. While in the former the
libidinal object cathexis was “removed” (F/Fer II, 48), i.e. relinquished (put to an end, as
it were), in the latter it was preserved. On the whole, the draft of “Mourning and Melanch-
olia” explicitly states that depression was not to be understood as a form of transference
neurosis but as a narcissistic neurosis.

Ferenczi’s and Abraham’s responses to Freud’s draft of “Mourning and

Melancholia”
Ferenczi and Abraham found it difficult to respond to Freud’s new ideas. Both of them had
to come to terms with the fact that their teacher’s thinking differed from their own efforts
to understand depression and, even more importantly, from their implicit and explicit the-
ories of psychic functioning (Abraham 1912; Ferenczi 1984 [1914]).4 Freud sent the draft of
“Mourning and Melancholia,” written on 7 February 1915, first to Ferenczi, asking him to
send it along to Abraham. On the 18th of the same month, he inquired why he hadn’t
heard anything from him (F/Fer II, 49). Ferenczi responded by saying that the only thing
he could say for himself was that during his silence he was “scientifically sterile and incap-
able of work” (49). In the same letter, he communicated first thoughts (50) to which, a few
days later, in a subsequent letter, he added further comments (51). Abraham received the
draft from Ferenczi on 5 March and got in touch with Freud on 31 March, mentioning that
he had “long postponed” his response out of concern that his attitude to Freud’s new
theory “might well be too subjective” since he himself had made attempts to reach an
2
Exceptions are Lussier (2000, 678–682) and Falzeder and Haynal (2002, xxix).
3
F/Fer refers to Freud’s correspondence with Ferenczi (1993–2000), followed by the number of the volume; F/A refers to
Freud’s correspondence with Abraham (2002).
4
At the end of 1914, Ferenczi wrote a paper on depression which, at the recommendation of Freud, was not published (F/
Fer I, 561, 562).
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 79

understanding of depression (F/A, 303). His letter contains the outline of his own theory
(303–305).

Freud and Ferenczi: The role of introjection

Freud and Ferenczi were in close contact, discussing pertinent questions regarding psy-
choanalytic theory, during visits, shared holidays, longer journeys and most likely also
during Ferenczi’s analysis with Freud (May 2006). In December 1914, shortly after the com-
pletion of the first tranche of Ferenczi’s analysis, Freud told his analysand that he had now
adopted his, meaning Ferenczi’s, concept of introjection (F/Fer II, 27; Ferenczi 1909, 1912,
1913). Indeed, in Freud’s oeuvre, the term “introjection” appears for the first time in
“Instincts and Their Vicissitudes” (1915a, 136), the first of the metapsychological papers,
which he completed in March 1915 and probably published at the end of May or the
beginning of June 1915 (see chronology, fn.1).
In “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes,” Freud followed Ferenczi insofar as he now too
assumed that the “external world” was the product of what the ego “expelled” first as
indifferent, then as alien, hostile and hateful to itself. What was perceived as pleasurable,
however, became part of the ego (Freud 1915a, 136).5 In this process of expulsion and intro-
jection, the “purified pleasure-ego” was created (ibid.). To put it differently, the ego was
thought to introject or incorporate objects (or parts of the external world) insofar as they
are a source of pleasure; the ego expels objects (or parts of the external world) insofar as
they are perceived as not pleasurable.6 In this view, introjection serves neither to merge
with nor to destroy the object. Rather, it serves to construct a boundary between the ego
and the external world. The process of introjection is seen as part of normal psychic devel-
opment through which the ego is constituted. Object representations, according to Freud’s
view, are formed only at a later stage, which seems somewhat surprising.
Even though Freud had appropriated Ferenczi’s notion of introjection, he did not make
use of it, either in the draft or in the final version of “Mourning and Melancholia.”7 Instead,
he spoke of a “projection of the object shadow” onto the ego, something Ferenczi com-
plained about in his letter to Freud (F/Fer II, 51). After all, hadn’t he “called [Freud’s] atten-
tion to this term” in the first place (ibid.)? He would have preferred it if Freud had defined
narcissistic identification as introjection, thereby bringing “his” introjection “to the place of
honour again” (51). As far as Ferenczi was concerned, depression was “the actual introjec-
tion psychosis” (50) and as such was characterized by a disturbance in the “demarcation of
the ego and the non-ego” (50). For Ferenczi, depression was an “intermediary thing
between the transference and the actual narcissistic neuroses” whose fixation point was
perhaps to be found in the “stage of transition from narcissistic love to object love” (50).
Despite his closeness with Ferenczi, Freud decided against using introjection in the
place of narcissistic identification. As he had clearly shown in “Instincts and Their Vicissi-
tudes,” at that time Freud reserved the term introjection for the description of normal
development, and he used narcissistic identification to refer to pathological processes
5
Ferenczi made it quite clear that the concept of introjection was his idea (F/Fer I, 556).
6
Ferenczi spoke of projective and introjective processes which constituted the relation between the subject and external
reality (1909, 41; 1913, 226–227); he did not, however, link them as tightly to the pleasure-unpleasure principle as Freud
did.
7
See also Matte-Blanco (1941, 18–19).
80 U. MAY

(see “Mourning and Melancholia” 1916–17b).8 Freud distinguished between schizophrenic

identity disorder (“I am the object”) and depressive self-devaluation (“I am as worthless as I
believe the object perceives me”) on the one hand, and those processes in normal devel-
opment that contribute to separating the ego from the external world and from objects,
on the other hand.
Apart from these differences, neither Freud nor Ferenczi attributed introjection and
identification to the oral stage.9 On the contrary, Freud made the point that oral incorpor-
ation was merely “a prototype” for the developmentally later mechanism of identification
(1905, 98). The question, then, was how narcissistic identification was related to incorpor-
ation, i.e. the instinctual aim of the oral stage, and furthermore, how instinctual processes
could be distinguished from mechanisms.
Both Freud and Ferenczi made a distinction between drive-related processes and ego
mechanisms. This distinction is not merely a theoretical stance but one that, in my opinion,
was rooted in their clinical practice. For instance, in his analyses (or to be more precise, in
his explications of his analyses), Freud again and again encountered psychic processes that
were different from instinctual impulses and yet a determining factor in the development
of psychic disorders. Clinically this insight implied interpretations not exclusively focused
on instinctual impulses. Nonetheless, Freud too acknowledged similarities between instinc-
tual processes and mechanisms, and proposed a genetic link: the latter arose from the
former, or rather, the former served as “the prototype” of the latter. In a similar vein,
Freud thought that it was possible that the intellectual functioning stemmed from “the
interplay of the primary instinctual impulses” (1925, 239). For instance, incorporation
into the ego would be linked to eros, and expulsion from the ego to the destructive
drive. In the language of orality, incorporation expressed itself in associating ingestion
with all that is good while expulsion manifested itself in linking the act of spitting-out
to all that is bad.

Freud and Abraham: The role of oral aggression

Freud’s reaction to Abraham’s comments on the draft of “Mourning and Melancholia” was
quite strong. He accused Abraham outright of reductive simplification, of reducing the ego
to the drive. In Freud’s view, Abraham was not able to say anything about the mechanism
of depression, and he neglected this aspect in favour of instinctual impulses and drive con-
stellations (F/A 309; May 2010, 114–115).
Without a doubt, Abraham’s epistolary response to the draft of “Mourning and Mel-
ancholia” is a unique document (F/A, 303–306).10 The reader feels how difficult it was
for him to have gone down a different path in his theorizing, especially because he
knew that Freud had not welcomed his previous paper on depression (1912; May [-Tolz-
mann] 1997). Since 1912, Abraham’s understanding of depression revolved around
aggression—or rather around an unusually strong sadism accompanied by the inability
8
Later (1921, 1923) Freud did find normal variants of narcissistic identification: primary identification (cf. Küchenhoff 1996;
Eickhoff 2009) and the super-ego, which Küchenhoff has described as de-pathologizing the concept of identification
(1996, 102).
9
Even though in Totem and Taboo Freud had already claimed a connection between identification and incorporation. As he
saw it, the young men experience the devouring of the father in a magical way, as the result of an ego regression and as
an appropriation of “a portion of his strength” (1912–13, 142).
10
Cf. Falzeder and Hermanns (2009, 29–31).
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 81

to love—as well as around the depressive’s suppressed hostile impulses. Abraham held
onto this position in his response to Freud’s draft.
At that time, Freud understood sadism as a constitutionally given instinctual impulse
(1913) belonging to the anal stage, which it dominated. Abraham, by contrast, thought
that besides sadism, “oral erotism” was the most important force in depression, and
that it distinguished depression from obsessional neurosis (with its pronounced anal
erotism). As Abraham saw it, the melancholic wants to (unconsciously) “devour” the
love-object, and that this wish was at the same time “a manifestation of love as well as
destruction” of the love-object (F/A, 304). These cannibalistic wishes formed the core of
the depressive’s self-reproaches. “Sadism and oral eroticism,” Abraham wrote in his
March letter, are the two factors that “should be added” to Freud’s draft of “Mourning
and Melancholia” (305).
Abraham believed that his theory was in line with Freud’s new description of the oral
stage as “cannibalistic” that he had added in the third edition of the Three Essays and which
had been published at the end of December 1914 (see chronology, fn. 1). In his March
1915 letter, Abraham writes:
There you discuss identification and you point to the infantile basis of this process: the child
wants to incorporate its love-object: to put it briefly, it wants to devour it. I have strong reason
to suspect that such cannibalistic tendencies exist in the melancholic’s identification. (304)

As evidence of this combination of oral eroticism with sadism, Abraham mentions the
depressive’s “fear of starvation,” his “refusal of food,” “the delusion of being a werewolf and
of having eaten men” as well as the impoverishment of the ego: “it has lost its content (that
is to say, that which it wanted to incorporate)” (305). Sadism, Abraham explained,
expressed itself in the depressive’s violent and criminal impulses and motor inhibition
as well as in the way in which “the melancholic torments those around him,” takes “pos-
session of the love-object” (304). Last but not least, Abraham went on, “the most open
sadism” resurfaced in the manic phase (304).11
For all we know, this letter of March 1915 is the first instance in which Abraham offered
his new view of depression to Freud. He presented it as the result of his own efforts (build-
ing on his assumptions elaborated in 1912) and he kept working on it, eventually publish-
ing it as “The First Pregenital Stage of the Libido” (1916–17), which he completed at the
end of 1915. As I have shown elsewhere, this paper is Abraham’s “revolution,” his very
own view of depression (May 2010). Whereas Freud’s draft of “Mourning and Melancholia”
makes no mention of oral or sadistic impulses, for Abraham they were all that was there.
Freud focused on the mechanisms of narcissistic identification and ego transformation,
Abraham on oral-cannibalistic and sadistic impulses. Here is Freud’s explanation of the
depressive’s self-reproaches: the melancholic takes the experienced (or fantasized) rejec-
tion from the object upon himself by identifying with it. As a secondary gain, this identifi-
cation serves as punishment of the object, taking revenge upon it, as it were. Abraham’s
explanation differs from Freud’s: what the depressive really wants is to eat up the object,
for which he reproaches himself. Translated into clinical practice, Abraham’s argument
implies that the depressive must become aware of his oral-cannibalistic and sadistic

It is possible that Freud’s remarks on mania in the final version of “Mourning and Melancholia” are an indirect reference to
11

Abraham. Freud argued that in mania it was not sadism that reappeared but the “liberation from the object which was
the cause of [the depressive’s] suffering” (1916–17b, 255).
82 U. MAY

wishes while Freud maintained that (unconscious) narcissistic identifications present

themselves as obstacles to analysis, therefore making it impossible for the melancholic
to become aware of the reproaches against the love-object with whom he is narcissistically
connected and whom he has made a part of himself.
Freud replied to Abraham’s long letter with a curt postcard (F/A, 307), to which
Abraham reacted with another letter in which he did not touch on the subject of melanch-
olia, whereupon Freud reported to Abraham in a subsequent letter dated 4 May 1915 that
“a quarter of an hour ago” he finished “Mourning and Melancholia” and that he “shall have
the manuscript typewritten” (309). “Your comments on melancholia were very valuable to
me,” Freud wrote:
I unhesitatingly incorporated in my paper those parts of them that I could use. What was most
valuable to me was the reference to the oral phase of the libido, and I also mention the link
with mourning. (F/A, 308)

These oft-cited words (which I will discuss below) were followed by the biting criticism
by which Freud taught Abraham a lesson. He criticized the fact that Abraham did not
acknowledge regression and the abandonment of unconscious object cathexis, and that
he “instead put into the foreground sadism and anal erotism as explanatory motifs,”
factors that had “their part in every symptom” (309, emphasis in original).12 Abraham
didn’t understand, Freud went on, that instinctual impulses and the Oedipus complex
were “ubiquitous sources of excitation” (ibid.), while the specificity of the disorder could
only be derived from the mechanism.
For the sake of clarity, it should be added that by “mechanism” Freud meant something
similar to what he later called defence mechanism. In the letter to Abraham, “mechanism”
refers to regression and to the abandonment of unconscious libidinal cathexis of the
object. Instinctual impulses (e.g. oral and anal ones) as well as drive constellations, e.g.
the Oedipus complex, were part and parcel of every clinical picture and they moreover
had a part in normal development. They could, however, not explain how a specific clinical
syndrome, such as depression, came about.
This rather compactly formulated admonishment points to what Freud regarded as
essential: the mechanism (narcissistic identification) and the regression that goes along
with it. Both elements refer to global conditions, to the functioning of the entire
psychic apparatus, as it were. What they are not concerned with are specific (anal or
oral) instinctual impulses and their vicissitudes. For Freud, the decisive factor in the
regression to the narcissistic stage is that it brings about changes in the intrapsychic
status of the object, that is to say in the nature of the object relation. In the regressed
state, objects are no longer libidinally cathected because they have become a part of
the ego that is stronger than the ego. The object, Freud writes, “proved more powerful
than the ego itself” (1916–17b, 252). Thus, Abraham’s search for the destiny of specific
instinctual impulses was in line with the first edition of Three Essays while, as far as tech-
nique was concerned, Freud had moved on and repeatedly reached the conclusion that an
analysis must not be limited to the making and becoming aware of specific instinctual
impulses.

12
Perhaps Freud made a slip (anal instead of oral eroticism), or perhaps he mentioned the two elements because Abraham
had described them as the driving forces of obsessional neurosis whereas Freud regarded the mechanism, i.e. regression
of the ego, as all-important (Freud 1909, 1912–13, 1913).
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 83

After the epistolary exchange in March and April of 1915, the theory of depression was
barely mentioned in the letters between Freud and Abraham. Only once more did
Abraham bring up the topic. In his letter dated 3 June 1915, he let Freud know that he
wasn’t quite clear what Freud meant by the ego taking upon itself the reproaches directed
against the object (F/A, 311). Freud’s reply was brusque: “I should gladly tell you more
about melancholia, but could do it properly only if we met and talked” (313). And: “Have
I not sent you the typed manuscript [of ‘Mourning and Melancholia’]?” (ibid.). In a letter
dated 6 July 1915, Abraham told Freud that he did not receive the manuscript; he also
mentioned that in his “virtually completed” paper on the mouth zone—published as
“The First Pregenital Stage” (1916–17)—he was “making allusions” to what he had commu-
nicated to Freud in his March letter (315). After this, Abraham and Freud stopped talking
about the theory of depression, and Abraham finished his paper without seeing the final
version of “Mourning and Melancholia.” The war made it impossible for them to meet, and
they did not see each other until September of 1918. By then, “Mourning and Melancholia”
had been published.

The final version of “Mourning and Melancholia”

After Freud had received first Ferenczi’s (February 1915) and then Abraham’s (March
1915) comments on his draft of “Mourning and Melancholia,” he finished three papers
on metapsychology (1915a, 1915b, 1915c) before he dedicated himself again to “Mourn-
ing and Melancholia.”13 He completed the manuscript at the beginning of May 1915.
The essay was published (after the metapsychological papers) in the last issue of the
fourth volume of the Internationale Zeitschrift (1916–17), which was dispatched in the
spring of 1918.
Most authors who worked on “Mourning and Melancholia” had no detailed knowledge
of the exact chronology of events.14 Thus, the publication date of “Mourning and Melanch-
olia” was often assumed to be 1917, which led to the erroneous assumption that the paper
was written after Abraham’s “First Pregenital Stages” (1916–17), when in fact Freud had
already completed it in May 1915.15 On the other hand, the publication date usually attrib-
uted to Abraham’s “The First Pregenital Stage” is 1916; examples are the German edition of
the collected papers of Abraham (1969, 1971), the Correspondence between Freud and
Abraham (2002), Zienert-Eilts’ Abraham study (2013) as well as Bentinck’s recent biography
(2013), all of them once more creating the impression that the text was written before
“Mourning and Melancholia.” Today there can be no doubt that Abraham completed
the manuscript of “The First Pregenital Stage” after the third edition of Three Essays and
after the final version of “Mourning and Melancholia.” However, Abraham’s text was
13
The papers were published in the order in which they were written: first “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes” (1915a), then
“Repression” (1915b), followed by “The Unconscious” (1915c), which was published in two installments.
14
The literature on “Mourning and Melancholia” is immense. Some of the most stimulating works are: Wisdom (1962),
Meissner (1970–72), Compton (1985), Etchegoyen (1985), Widlocher (1985), Küchenhoff (1996), Ogden (2002), Lussier
(2000), Zepf and Hartmann (2005), Eickhoff (2008), Quinodoz (2009, 2011, 256–260) and Dahl (2015).
15
The reason why Meyer-Palmedo and Fichtner (1999, 439) list “Mourning and Melancholia” as being published in 1916–17
is due to the fact that the publisher Heller used that year as the publication date for the fourth volume of the Interna-
tionale Zeitschrift. In addition, Heller indicated the publication date of every single one of the six issues that comprise the
fourth volume on the cover of each issue: 1916 for issues 1 and 2, 1917 for issues 3, 4 and 5, 1918 for issue 6. “Mourning
and Melancholia” was published in issue 6. Why Strachey (1957) gives 1917 as the publication date for “Mourning and
Melancholia” is unclear.
84 U. MAY

printed and dispatched before “Mourning and Melancholia.” The chronology is as follows:
draft of “Mourning and Melancholia”—completion of “Mourning and Melancholia”—com-
pletion of “The First Pregenital Stage”—publication of “The First Pregenital Stage”—pub-
lication of “Mourning and Melancholia” (see chronology, fn.1).
I shall now explore the ways in which the final version of “Mourning and Melancholia”
engages with Abraham’s comments, especially those concerning orality.
At the centre of “Mourning and Melancholia”—both the draft and the final version—is
the notion of narcissistic identification (see Ogden 2002, 772). Because this important
theoretical innovation is accompanied by a host of additional insights and considerations,
it is easy to overlook its key position, especially if one is not familiar with the draft (which,
to repeat myself, was only published in 1996). As in the draft so in the final version Freud
distinguishes between libidinal and narcissistic cathexis and he holds onto a notion of the
ego as a kind of substance that is divisible and whose parts are in conflict with one
another, each part adopting elements of objects that may in turn become more powerful
than the rest of the ego.
As concerns Abraham’s contribution to “Mourning and Melancholia,” many agree with
Strachey’s comment, included in his editorial note to the text, that Abraham had given
Freud the “important suggestion” that “there was a connection between melancholia
and the oral stage of libidinal development” (Strachey 1957, 239).16 Freud’s remark to
Abraham that he incorporated into his own work those parts [of Abraham’s comments]
that he could use, most importantly “the reference to the oral phase of the libido” (F/A,
308), seems to support this claim. Secondly, one could point to the fact that there is no
mention of orality in the draft of “Mourning and Melancholia” but that it appears in the
final version of the manuscript. And thirdly, we could point to Abraham’s letter of April
1918, which he wrote after reading “Mourning and Melancholia.” In this letter he writes:
“I am pleased to note that my ‘incorporation phantasy’ could be fitted into the wider fra-
mework of your theory” (375). At first sight, this interpretation, backed up by the evidence
just cited, seems wholly convincing—and indeed had me convinced for a long time. With
the discovery of the draft of “Mourning and Melancholia,” and after I created a chronology
of events (see note 1) and looked at the Report on the Advances of Psychoanalysis [Bericht
über die Fortschritte der Psychoanalyse] (1921), I became doubtful of my judgement.
Abraham’s name is mentioned only twice in “Mourning and Melancholia.” The first
mention is in a footnote on the first page, where Freud refers to Abraham’s 1912 publi-
cation on manic-depressive insanity, which he describes as the “most important of the
few analytic studies” on depression; he also mentions that Abraham had drawn attention
to the similarities between melancholia and mourning (1916–17b, 243).

Dahl argues that Freud, after a long period of hesitation, “integrated Abraham’s hypothesis of an oral-cannibalistic stage
16

into his very own theory of oral eroticism” (2015, 224). According to Dahl, Freud adopted it from Abraham but “only as
fictitious organization,” “not mentioning that he had the idea from Abraham” (ibid). I agree with Dahl that Freud was
sceptical towards Abraham’s view. Unlike Dahl, I do not see any evidence that Abraham was the first to propose an
oral-cannibalistic stage. What we do have evidence for is that Freud introduced the oral-cannibalistic stage in the
autumn of 1914 in the third edition of Three Essays as well as in his case study of the Wolf Man, which was written
at the same time. We also know for a fact that the third edition of Three Essays appeared in December 1914 and that
Freud sent it to Abraham, who thanked Freud for it in January 1915 and read it in February (F/A, 295, 299). Moreover,
for all we know, Abraham first presented his own theory, which focused on both oral eroticism and sadism, to Freud in his
March 1915 letter, where he announced that he would write a paper on it (“The First Pregenital Stages”), on which he
worked until the end of 1915. For more information on the prehistory of Abraham’s interest in orality, which dates back at
least to 1913, and for more relevant data see May (2010, 2011) and chronology (fn.1).
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 85

Freud thus honours Abraham’s 1912 paper, but nowhere in his text does he discuss its
content: not in the footnote and not in any other passage of “Mourning and Melancholia,”
even though there were plenty of opportunities for doing so, for example in the sections
where he expounded his own theory of the role of sadism in depression.17 With his remark
on the similarities between normal mourning and melancholia, Freud complied with Abra-
ham’s wish to be mentioned in this context (F/A, 303), which, in my opinion, does not
count for very much since Freud had already drawn this comparison himself.18
The second time that Freud mentions Abraham he does so respectfully and with careful
attention (1916–17b, 250). First, he presents his own solution to the problem of melanch-
olia: in depression, the love for the object that has been lost or has disappointed the
subject is replaced by a narcissistic identification with the object. The ego directs its
reproaches no longer against the object but towards itself. The narcissistic identification
was a preliminary stage of object choice, and
the first way—and one that is expressed in an ambivalent fashion—in which the ego dis-
tinguishes an object. The ego wants to incorporate this object into itself, and, in accordance
with the oral or cannibalistic phase of libidinal development in which it is, it wants to do so by
devouring it. (249–250)

All of the above are Freud’s own original thoughts, which he had previously proposed,
in similar wording, in the third edition of Three Essays (1905, 198), in the case study of the
Wolf Man (1918, 106), written in 1914, and finally in “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes”
(1915a, 138). Freud then continues: “Abraham is undoubtedly right in attributing to this
connection the refusal of nourishment met in severe forms of melancholia” (250).
In the past, I read this passage as Freud’s acknowledgement that he owed the insight into
the connection between melancholia and the oral phase to Abraham—until I realized that I
had read this into the text. Today I am of the opinion that with “this connection” Freud was
referring to the connection between orality and incorporation (devouring), which was
definitely his own thought and not adopted from Abraham. Envisaged this way, Freud
was really saying that Abraham saw “this connection” between orality and incorporation
as responsible for the fact that the depressive’s refusal of food had something to do with
oral-cannibalistic wishes or a regression to the oral stage. My new reading implies that in
reality, Freud grants Abraham very little: the deduction of a single depressive symptom—
the refusal of food—associated with the regression to the oral stage.
From here on, “Mourning and Melancholia” makes no further mention of Abraham’s
name. However, Freud engages with him implicitly when he emphasizes that his theory
of melancholia as based on narcissistic object choice and regression to narcissism had
“not yet been confirmed” and was at this point nothing more than a “conclusion that
our theory would require,” and when he admits that “the empirical material … was insuffi-
cient” (250). As a matter of fact, Freud cannot stop pointing out the hypothetical character
of his theory:

17
Freud had assigned it a domineering role on the anal stage and he thought it to be a significant factor in the dynamics of
depression. However, he attributed sadism to the anal-erotic-sadistic stage and not to the oral or narcissistic stage (1916–
17b, 250–251). Even though the conflict of ambivalence was, “as it were, killing” the object (257), in Freud’s view the
reverse mechanism was the more important dynamic, namely that the subject was held (or fantasized as being held)
captive or being killed by the object.
18
Strachey (1957, 240) points to Freud’s concluding remarks in “Discussion on Suicide” (1910, 232). There is also his remark
in the meeting of the Vienna Group in March 1909: “mourning is nothing but a natural melancholia” (Min. 2, 182).
86 U. MAY

If we could assume an agreement between the results of the observation and what we have
inferred, we should not hesitate to include this regression from object cathexis to the still nar-
cissistic oral phase of the libido in our characterization of melancholia. (250)

In other words, Freud assumed that melancholia was characterized by a regression to

the narcissistic stage, but he wasn’t sure about it.19
On the surface, the tension that can be felt in these remarks refers to the hypothetical
character of the regression to narcissism and to the oral stage. It is, however, possible
that there is a subtext to Freud’s cautious formulations: Abraham’s focus on oral
erotism and cannibalistic wishes. Freud, it seems to me, silently engages with Abraham’s
thesis by presenting it as completely self-evident (“the still narcissistic oral phase of the
libido”). In this he was certainly “in the right,” because according to his (Freud’s) view, the
oral and (to a large extent) the sadistic-anal phase were indeed ruled by narcissism.
Strictly speaking, Freud therefore didn’t have to make special mention of orality. It
might very well be, though, that he did not want to mention it because in his view
orality was not a determining factor in the depressive’s regression to narcissism. In
any case, Freud’s wording seems to suggest that he was irritated, which might have
been the reason why he felt he needed to draw attention to the fact that the (Abraham’s)
focus on the significance of the oral stage was conjecture and nothing more. After all,
Freud was careful to point out its “fictitious” character already in his first presentation
of the notion of the oral stage in Three Essays (May 2010, 99–100). For Abraham, on
the other hand, the oral stage was a “fact.” In his “The First Pregenital Stage,” he later
stated quite firmly that he—unlike Freud—had found evidence that the oral stage
“really” existed and that he was thus able to dispel Freud’s doubts. After that, “Mourning
and Melancholia” makes no further mention of orality and of Abraham’s thesis
(expounded in his March letter) that the depressive wanted to devour the object and
reproached himself for this wish.
To be very clear, it seems to me that the only insight that Freud admits he owes to
Abraham is the depressive’s refusal of food as an expression of a regression to the oral
stage (without ever mentioning Abraham’s explanation as to why the depressive
refuses food). In doing so, Freud limits Abraham’s contribution to the explanation of
just one symptom, a symptom that is of little importance in his own analysis of melanch-
olia. It is therefore true that Freud “unhesitatingly incorporated” (F/A, 308) Abraham’s
remark regarding the involvement of the oral phase in melancholia to his own text. The
way in which Freud did it, however, both marginalizes and implicitly disputes Abraham’s
contribution. After all, Freud himself had discovered and described the connection
between orality and identification, for example in Totem and Taboo (1912–13), and he
saw the incorporation occurring on the oral stage as the model or “prototype” for later
identifications. When it came to the new concept of narcissistic identification, however,
he obviously did not regard the incorporation of the object to be a decisive factor, but
its opposite (so to say): the ego being incorporated by the object—which provoked
new questions. For if the object becomes “more powerful than the ego itself” (1916–
17b, 252), the ego either brings about its own destruction (since it had to be assumed
that the object was imagined and fantasized by the ego) or it suffers from a weakness,

19
To my knowledge, Freud never supplied the missing evidence; he went on to present his theory in The Introductory Lec-
tures (1916–17a) and elsewhere without ever again mentioning its hypothetical nature.
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 87

either constitutionally given or caused by regression, which makes it impossible to cope

with the loss of or the disappointment by the object.

After “Mourning and Melancholia”

While in “Mourning and Melancholia” Freud’s disagreement with Abraham mostly occurs
between the lines, he is much more explicit in the months following the completion of the
paper. In his Overview of the Transference Neuroses (completed in July 1915, and published
posthumously) Freud once again repeated that “melancholia was based on narcissistic
identification with the object” (1985 [1915], 10); there is not a single word on the
regression of the libido to the oral stage. A year later, in his Introductory Lectures on
Psycho-Analysis (1916–17a), Freud speaks about depression in more detail (427–428).
Once again, he doesn’t mention Abraham, either his 1912 publication or the “First Prege-
nital Stages,” which we know Freud had read by then, even though this essay had not yet
been printed when Freud was working on the lectures about depression (see chronology).
This, however, did not stop him from referring to Abraham’s paper, namely in the chapter
on normal development: “Only recently Abraham has given examples of the traces which
this primitive oral phase leaves behind it in later life” (ibid., 327). I read this as an unam-
biguous approval of Abraham’s theory of the oral stage in normal psychic development
and an equally unambiguous disapproval of Abraham’s speculations regarding the role
of the oral phase in the development and dynamic of melancholia. The same is true, it
seems to me, for Freud’s addition to the fourth edition of Three Essays made in the
summer of 1920, where he wrote rather laconically: “For remnants of this phase in adult
neurotics, cf. Abraham (1916)” (1905, 198). Again, Freud did not make a connection
between a theory of depression and regression to the oral stage. In my opinion, the
way Freud deals with Abraham’s notion of depression is quite obvious: he ignored it.
Clearly, Freud favoured his own theory, which assumed the regression and deformation
of the ego through narcissistic identification.
I wonder what was it like for Abraham when he read the Introductory Lectures in June
1917, when he learned that Freud thought of his theses as nothing more than a marginal
contribution to the theory of depression (F/A, 352). At first he was quite enthusiastic, and in
his letter dated 17 June 1917 he offered to write a review for the Internationale Zeitschrift
für Psychoanalyse. Freud declined: “so far my books have never been reviewed in our
journal” (352). In August 1917, Abraham renewed his offer, only to let Freud know in Sep-
tember that he had fallen ill and would “not complete the review for the Zeitschrift,” which
was why he was going to comment on the Lectures (only) in his letter (354, 356–357). Twice
Freud did not hear that Abraham was not going to write a review (358, 361), but Abraham
remained firm: he did not write the review. Instead, as promised, he dealt with the Lectures
(only) in a letter to Freud. His brief but positive comments are of a more general nature
without attention to detail (357). To me, Abraham’s disappointment seems almost palp-
able: Freud had not, even in a single word, found it worth his while to acknowledge Abra-
ham’s thoughts on the aetiology of depression explicated in his “The First Pregenital
Stage.”20

20
Regarding Abraham’s internal state, see Bentinck (2013), whose biography I unfortunately could not consider for this
publication.
88 U. MAY

In November 1917, Freud prepared “Mourning and Melancholia” for publication (F/A,
361), which usually involved adding instructions for the typesetter, additions to the bibli-
ography and so on. This would have been the time for him to include a reference to Abra-
ham’s “The First Pregenital Stage.” He refrained from doing so. Since we know of no
external reasons that might have caused this omission, we have to assume that Freud
chose not to include Abraham’s theses.
Let me add a few words regarding Abraham’s “The First Pregenital Stage” (for a detailed
discussion, see May 2010). In the very first sentence of his paper, Abraham mentions
Freud’s account of the oral stage in the third edition of Three Essays, announcing that it
was his aim to provide something that Freud had not been able to offer: an empirical
and clinical explanation of the oral stage (1916–17, 248). In Abraham’s view, the
“archaic condition” of the oral stage was not just a necessary assumption, fiction as it
were, but accessible to clinical observation. “The instinctual life of the infant persists in
some adults in a positive and un-mistakable fashion,” Abraham writes, and “the libido
of such persons presents a picture which appears to correspond in all its details to the
oral or cannibalistic stage set up by Freud” (253). This is the context in which Abraham pre-
sents the thesis he had already put forward in his March letter: in its core, depression con-
sisted of a regression of the libido to oral erotism and sadism. The depressive’s symptoms,
especially the refusal of food, were rooted in oral-cannibalistic fantasies. Abraham empha-
sized how closely his ideas were linked to Freud’s theoretical conceptualization without
mentioning that he also disagreed with Freud.

Abraham and Ferenczi on the final version of “Mourning and Melancholia”

Abraham’s “The First Pregenital Stage” appeared in December 1916; in 1917, Freud pub-
lished his Lectures, and in the spring of 1918 the Internationale Zeitschrift issued “Mourning
and Melancholia,” the proofs of which Abraham received in April 1918. Here is what he
wrote to Freud:
I already knew the draft of your melancholia paper so that it was less of a surprise to me. I am
pleased to note that my ‘incorporation phantasy’ could be fitted into the wider framework of
your theory. I have no important criticisms of this paper either and can only admire your ability
to complete the edifice always a little more at such a time. One very minor criticism is the fol-
lowing. The so-called delusion of inferiority found in the melancholic only appears to be such.
… Even though the self-reproaches may be aimed at the love-object, they signify at the same
time a narcissistic over-estimation of the own criminal capacities (similar to obsessional neu-
rotics who think themselves capable of monstrous crimes). (F/A, 375–376)

Abraham’s reaction seems unenthusiastic, if not reluctant. It is just not true that compared
to the draft the final version of “Mourning and Melancholia” did not contain anything new.
Abraham’s comment denies the power and the genius of “Mourning and Melancholia.”
When Abraham then goes on to say that he has no “important criticisms” of the paper,
he, it seems to me, strikes the wrong chord. Was Abraham again disappointed that his
own theory of depression had found so very little resonance in Freud’s masterpiece? His
“observation” that Freud had fitted “his” (Abraham’s) incorporation fantasy into his
paper is nothing but wishful thinking, or irony perhaps. While it is true that Freud acknowl-
edged the incorporation fantasy, he (as I previously mentioned) assigned it a rather mar-
ginal place in his theory of depression.
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 89

Compared to Abraham, Ferenczi’s response to “Mourning and Melancholia” seems

calmer, more relaxed, but also less confident. He noted that in this paper Freud was con-
cerned with the structure of the psychic apparatus:
Your two essays (Metapsychology of Dream Processes, Mourning and Melancholia) are occu-
pying me constantly. Only now does one comprehend the structure of the Ψ apparatus. But I
fear you are correct in your assumption that at most one to two people will grasp the extent of
what is being revealed. It will become necessary to revise the concept of introjection on the
basis of the new findings. I will reflect on this. (F/Fer, 263).

As far as introjection was concerned, Ferenczi obviously backtracked. In my view, Ferenczi

understood Freud better than Abraham but (at least before the mid 1920s) he was less
able to hold onto and pursue his own thoughts (Haynal 2014). Abraham, on the other
hand, was courageous enough to put forward his own view on depression even though
Freud resented him for it.

The Report on the Advances of Psychoanalysis between 1914 and 1919

The Report on the Advances of Psychoanalysis between 1914 and 1919 [Bericht über die Fort-
schritte], edited by Otto Rank, was published in 1921. In this 390-page tome, 22 authors
presented the most recent developments in psychoanalysis, reviewing both German
and foreign language literature. Abraham’s “The First Pregenital Stage” was mentioned
three times: in the chapter on drive theory written by Hitschmann (1921), in Ferenczi’s
chapter on the “General Theory of the Neuroses” (1921), and in the chapter on “Special
Pathology and Therapy of the Neuroses and Psychoses” composed by Abraham and
Harnik (1921).21
Hitschmann’s account of Abraham’s work is quite brief, and limited to referencing Abra-
ham’s description of the connection between orality and some symptoms in adult life.
There is no mention of Abraham’s contribution to the theory of depression or his
theory of a regression to the oral stage (1921, 46–48). Hitschmann only references
Freud, who had assumed the regression to the sadistic-anal stage in obsessional neurosis
and a regression to the narcissistic stage in psychoses.
In his chapter on “The general theory of the neuroses” Ferenczi begins with a summary
of the most important ideas of “Mourning and Melancholia.” The way in which he reads
Freud’s text pushed me to think more about Abraham’s contribution in the first place
(1921, 108). Ferenczi writes that Abraham had shown that “the refusal of food, so charac-
teristic of depression, must be traced back to a regression from the object cathexis to the
oral stage of the libido (Abraham)” (108). It was then that I, for the first time, noticed that in
“Mourning and Melancholia” Abraham’s contribution to the theory of depression had been
limited to the conclusion that the refusal to eat went back to the oral stage. Further down
in the text, Ferenczi maintains that for Abraham, “in melancholia an unconscious sadistic
wish seemed dominant in annihilating the love-object by devouring it” (115). Examples of
these libidinal impulses were “some of the depressive’s severe self-reproaches” which “in
the insane expressed themselves, in negative form, i.e. in the refusal of all food” while the
21
While the entire Bericht has not been translated into English, differently worded and/or incomplete and much shorter
versions of Ferenczi’s (1920), Hitschmann’s (1920) and Abraham’s (1920) chapters were published in The International
Journal of Psychoanalysis.
90 U. MAY

fear of starvation was “the result of repression when the cannibalistic desire is converted
into fear” (ibid.). Ferenczi presents Abraham’s theory of depression somewhat reluctantly.
He writes that the sadistic wish seems to be dominant and that some, i.e. not all self-
reproaches refer to the refusal to eat. Ferenczi also adds his own interpretations (repres-
sion of oral-sadistic wishes and their conversion into fear). In sum, Ferenczi found Abra-
ham’s contribution worth mentioning even though he limited its explanatory power to
“some” of the depressive’s self-reproaches.
The chapter entitled “Specific Pathology and Therapy of the Neuroses and Psychoses”
(1921), written by Abraham and Jenö Harnik, contains a surprise. Aside from neglecting to
accurately present the core arguments of “Mourning and Melancholia”—perhaps due to
the fact that Abraham left this section to the then still inexperienced Harnik—the real sur-
prise is that there is no reference whatsoever to Abraham’s “The First Pregenital Stages,”
not in the text and not in the bibliography preceding each review. Meanwhile Abraham’s
other publications between 1914 and 1919 are properly referenced (Abraham and Harnik
1921, 161). What to make of this omission? Is it really possible that Abraham could have
forgotten his own paper?
In the Rundbriefe (circular letters) that were exchanged about the Bericht, Rank com-
plained that some colleagues had not done their homework and had neglected to
include pertinent literature, which was why Freud objected to its publication in the
present form (Wittenberger and Tögel 1999, 106–107). In the following Rundbrief,
Abraham defended himself: “I have personally reviewed all pertinent articles of the Zeit-
schrift [and I am certain that] I have not overlooked anything of importance” (125). Does
that mean that Abraham adopted Freud’s verdict on his “The First Pregenital Stages”?
Did he agree that in reality his paper was just a contribution to the understanding of
the vicissitudes of the oral component of the drive in normal and neurotic development,
but not to the aetiology of depression? Did he defer to Freud’s judgement, trying to patch
up their differences, aware that Freud did not approve of his thesis on the aetiology of
depression?

Preliminary conclusions
In “Mourning and Melancholia,” Freud concurred with Abraham’s assumptions that the
depressive’s refusal of food had an oral-cannibalistic background. The more far-reaching
argument, however, Freud did not underwrite; he doubted that the core of depression,
i.e. the depressive’s self-reproaches and self-devaluation, could be traced back to oral-can-
nibalistic impulses. In his later works, those written after “Mourning and Melancholia,” such
as Overview of the Transference Neuroses (1985 [1915]) and most importantly the Lectures
(1916–17a), Freud completely ignored Abraham’s theory, emphasizing instead the
superior power of the mechanism of narcissistic identification (as he had done in “Mourn-
ing and Melancholia”). Abraham published his theory, which he had communicated to
Freud in a letter in March 1915, in his “The First Pregenital Stages” (1916–17). In it he
referred to Freud’s new remarks on the oral-cannibalistic stage in the third edition of
Three Essays (1905), and he understood his paper to provide evidence for the existence
of this stage that Freud had described as “constructed.” In other words, while Abraham
saw himself as following Freud (or presented himself as a follower), Freud had many reser-
vations about Abraham’s thoughts on orality. In his review on the pathology and therapy
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 91

of the neuroses and psychoses, Abraham distanced himself from his own theory by not
even mentioning it (Abraham and Harnik 1921).22
Ferenczi’s introjection was not admitted into Freud’s theory of depression but Freud
made use of it in his theory of normal psychic development, whose outline he sketched
in “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes.” While Ferenczi understood introjection quite literally
as a kind of devouring or ingesting, Freud uses the term in a less concrete sense as a
process by which the boundaries of the ego were being constituted, separating it from
the external world.
In reconstructing the history of “Mourning and Melancholia,” I was able to highlight the
differences between Freud’s, Abraham’s and Ferenczi’s theories and to sort out the chron-
ology of psychoanalytic theorizing. More importantly, I hope to have demonstrated that
some time between late 1914 and early 1915, Freud arrived at insights concerning the nar-
cissistic relation between ego and object that hitherto had been closed to him. The patho-
logical version of this relationship he described as “narcissistic identification” (“Mourning
and Melancholia”), the normal one he described as “preliminary stages of love” (“Instincts
and Their Vicissitudes”). Because these two concepts profoundly altered the foundations
of psychoanalytic theory, they could not just be added to existing theoretical concepts.
They emerged, it seems to me, from clinical practice, or, to be more precise, from the
ways in which Freud conceptualized his clinical experience.
In what follows I offer a summary of the theoretical innovations regarding the differ-
ences between narcissistic and non-narcissistic experiencing that Freud presented in
“Mourning and Melancholia” and “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes.” The synthesis and
reading I offer are mine. They concern an aspect of Freud’s theory that, it seems to me,
got lost or was marginalized in the history of psychoanalysis, specifically the differentiation
of the narcissistic cathexis from the libidinal cathexis of the object. Perhaps it receded to
the background, because Freud’s own usage was so varied. However, despite all ambiguity
and obscurity, I think it is clear that the difference mentioned does not only refer to what is
occupied: the ego or an (other) object. It also refers to whether or not the ego is modified.
This distinction is inherent in the draft and final version of “Mourning and Melancholia”
and will now be emphasized and elaborated by me in the following. Briefly summarized:
in the case of the libidinal cathexis of an object, the ego remains unchanged and the
object remains separate from the ego. In the case of a narcissistic cathexis of the object,
however, the ego itself and its relation to the object is affected in many respects. One
specific alteration that Freud focused on in “Mourning and Melancholia” is that in narcis-
sistic identification the object becomes a part of the ego and can no longer be experi-
enced as separate from the ego.

Narcissistic identification and the preliminary stages of love

With “narcissistic identification” and the “preliminary stages of love,” Freud described a
new relation between subject and object, a relation that was the opposite of what was
(and to some extent still is) usually understood by “being in a relationship.” Even before
22
As I have discussed elsewhere, a few years later Abraham (1924) insisted on it confidently, going as far as to propose an
oral-sadistic stage that significantly differed from Freud’s oral-cannibalistic stage despite the similarity suggested by the
choice of words (see May 2011).
92 U. MAY

“Mourning and Melancholia,” Freud had written about narcissistic object choice, but now
he further developed this concept, adding a new dimension whose irrationality was of a
different quality than the irrationality of the unconscious, which he had described in his
Studies on Hysteria (Breuer and Freud 1895), The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud 1900)
and other works.23
In “Mourning and Melancholia,” Freud used the distinction between narcissistic and libi-
dinal object cathexis that he had introduced a few years ago. To repeat: in his view, the
narcissistically cathected object is a part of the ego, whereas the libidinally cathected
object is not a part of the ego. Freud called the libidinally cathected object a “foreign”
(= “fremdes”) object, which is synonymous with the object that is being chosen in non-nar-
cissistic object choice.
The first feature of the narcissistic organization (of which the subject is unconscious) is
that objects cannot be attacked when the subject feels disappointed or abandoned by
them “because” they are a part of the ego. Disappointment and loss trigger self-devalua-
tion (as opposed to mourning and anger in the libidinal object cathexis), which over-
whelms the subject, and which may persist for a long time without the subject knowing
where the self-reproaches come from and that they are not entirely their “own” feelings.
In non-narcissistic experience, objects can be assaulted “because” love has become “the
opposite” of hate or because objects have acquired the status of “foreign” objects. The
inability to attack the object also means that in narcissistic regression the subject is not
able to experience a conflict with the object, not even in the unconscious, “because”
love and hatred are not differentiated. Instead of conflict, the subject experiences self-
devaluation (in depression) or the loss of identity (in the schizophrenic psychoses) (Land-
auer 1914), a process of which the subject is unaware.
The second characteristic of narcissistic experience (be it conscious or unconscious) is to
do with the fact that the disappointing or lost object has been stripped of its “meaning,” or,
as Freud put it, the unconscious cathexis of the object is “removed” or “abandoned” (F/Fer
II, 48; 1916–17b, 250). In narcissistic experience, the disappointing or lost object is divested
of any significance while in non-narcissistic experience the relationship to the disappoint-
ing or lost object is maintained and can be revised. Nevertheless, the narcissistic subject

23
As one reader of the manuscript rightly pointed out, this claim requires an explanation. In my opinion, what we are
dealing with is an intrapsychic logic that is irrational insofar as it does not know of an object, i.e. of an other; there is
a “one” but there is no “two.” This logic, it seems to me, can be found in the following works, all of them written or
published in 1915. (1) In “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes“ (1915a), Freud states that in the perversion of masochism
the subject “is replaced by another, extraneous ego“ (132; German: 95), with the result that the ego “is” the object.
(2) In “The Unconscious,” in a section where he presents the destiny of thing- and word-presentations in schizophrenia,
Freud speaks of the “withdrawal of instinctual cathexis from the points which represent the unconscious presentation of
the object,” i.e. the disappearance—not the repression!—of the unconscious thing-presentations (1915c, 203, emphasis
in original; German: 161). When this is the case, the psychic apparatus contains the representation of the ego and the
word-presentation of the object but not the (thing-)presentation of the object itself. (3) In “A Case of Paranoia
Running Counter to the Psychoanalytic Theory of the Disease,” we read that in schizophrenic psychoses there is no dis-
tinction between subject and object; here too, the subject “is” the object (1915d, 269–270; German: 214). (4) In “Mourning
and Melancholia” (1916–17b), written in 1915 as well, Freud describes the narcissistic identification in depression as
“abandonment” of the libidinal object cathexis (250; the German word is “aufgelassen,” 204, meaning “given up,”
“dropped”). Again, from the point of view of of the psychic apparatus there is no longer an object even though, seen
from the outside and unknown to the subject, the subject is dominated by the object, which has become a part of
the ego; this way the subject “is” the object. The above-mentioned passages are, I think, part of a logic of narcissism
that characterizes psychotic and neurotic as well as normal psychic processes, which deepens and adds to insights
that Freud had presented in “On Narcissism” (1914). In these preliminary explanations, the object, evidently, refers to
an intrapsychic object and not to an “external” one, even though Freud does not always make a clear distinction
between the two (Hämäläinen 2009).
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 93

responds to loss and disappointment with severe symptoms, such as depression or schizo-
phrenic stupor. As a consequence, the existence of a (not overly disappointing) object
guarantees a high level of psychic intactness—without the subject being aware of his pro-
found dependency on the object to maintain such intactness. By contrast, in non-narcis-
sistic experience, the subject’s response to loss and disappointment is usually anger and
grief, both of which go along with milder and more short-term symptoms.
Thirdly, the subject regressed to narcissism does not perceive the object as another
human being, does not attribute feelings, wishes and impulses to it—a perception that
corresponds to the normal experience on the oral and sadistic-anal stage. As Freud saw
it, on these “preliminary stages of love,” love (via oral incorporation or sadistic mastery
of the object) and the “abolishing of the object’s separate existence” (damaging it or bring-
ing about its destruction) are not mutually exclusive and not experienced as conflictual
(1915a, 138). Both the subject regressed to narcissism and the small child treat the
object as they please, in a “selfish” or self-involved way that serves their needs and
wants. We might say that they use it “recklessly” (from the object’s point of view) in
order to satisfy their needs and to stabilize psychic functioning. In non-narcissistic experi-
ence, however, the subject perceives the object—at least in part and depending on the
developmental stage—as a person with his or her own wishes, feelings and so on.24
Freud anticipated, it seems to me, much of what would later be rediscovered as ego
disorder or narcissistic disorder. What I find truly remarkable is the equanimity and impar-
tiality with which he describes the narcissistic object relation. He does not disqualify it as
perverse or crazy, nor does he take a moralizing stance towards it, even though it is quite
clear that he thought the narcissistic use of the object to be less mature than the non-nar-
cissistic one. As I see it, narcissistic object relations were close to Freud’s view of the con-
ditio humana and the origin of psychic disorders. One of his earliest and lifelong
convictions was that in its core, sexuality was autoerotic both in infantile experience
and in adult life in which the infantile lives on. For Freud, autoerotic didn’t just refer to
the masturbatory satisfaction derived from one’s own body, it also referred to the “egotis-
tical” use of the object.
Could it be that the rise of relational theories contributed to projecting object relations
into Freud’s theory of the psyche to an extent that in fact was quite foreign to him, while
the autoerotic/narcissistic element has escaped from our view or has been reduced to a
mere symptom (similarly Ludin 2015)? Describing the oral stage, Laplanche and Pontalis,
for instance, speak of an “oral object-relationship,” an oral “relational mode” and a “love
relationship to the mother” that was “marked by the meanings of eating and being
eaten” (1967, 275, 287). In these formulations, the concept of the object relationship is
reduced to its later developmental variant, in which the object is already separated
from the ego and can be libidinously cathected. What has been forgotten, though, is
Freud’s, I think, brilliant discovery of the earlier and more archaic narcissistic object
relation.

Notably, Freud states that at this stage love could hardly be distinguished from hate “in its attitude towards the object”
24

(1915a, 139). I believe that “attitude” is to be understood in opposition to “experiencing,” as something perceived from
the outside, by an observer. Strachey translated “Verhalten” as attitude; behavior would have been the more accurate
translation. In this same vein, I interpret Freud’s 1924 addition to the fourth edition of Three Essays in which he states
that in his libido theory Abraham described “attitudes towards the object” (1905, 198), and not, we should add, the
experience of the object. Here too Freud speaks of the “behaviour towards the object (“Verhalten gegenüber dem
Objekt”).
94 U. MAY

By way of explanation, I would like to add that I agree with Ogden (2002) and Küchenhoff
(1996) that “Mourning and Melancholia” can be seen as the beginning of object relations
theory. As I have shown elsewhere (May 2016), since “Mourning and Melancholia” Freud
thinks of objects as (intrapsychic) givens actively pursuing their own goals rather than as
sites to be cathected by libidinal energy. In “Mourning and Melancholia,” the object has
arrived, so to say, at psychoanalytic theory (at the psychic apparatus), and it is endowed
with a great deal of significance and power. To put it differently, the object, even though
imagined, fantasied and created by the subject, has the ability to escape the grip of the
ego, and to act on the inner world where it can bring about a devaluation of the self/ego
without the subject taking note of this operation. As has been noted, this very new perspec-
tive on the object gave rise to the notion of the super-ego (1923). We therefore see that since
“Mourning and Melancholia” the instinctual impulses are no longer the sole engine of
psychic life. It is, however, my impression that object relations theories tend to forget the nar-
cissistic mode of object relating. This may have to do with the fact that narcissistic relations
have come to be regarded as pathological. The generations after Freud, after the Holocaust
and World War II have, rightly so, turned their attention to destruction, traumatization, the
abuse and oppression of “objects” and the pathological narcissism of the perpetrators and
their morally despicable actions. In the face of these deplorable events, it may have been
difficult always to keep in mind the fundamental rule of analysis, which requires a temporary
suspension of moral judgement, and which, not least because of this, has a curative effect.
Freud showed us, I think, that both narcissistic relations and sexual component impulses are
neither amoral nor evil or perverse per se, but that they must be seen as pre-stages of love in
early infancy, which carry over into adulthood where they may manifest as both morally valu-
able and socially reprehensible fantasies and actions.

Acknowledgement
I thank Bettina Mathes who translated the manuscript and offered invaluable comments and queries.

Translations of summary

In conversation: Freud, Abraham and Ferenczi on “Mourning and melancholia” (1915 – 1918). This
article concentrates on Freud’s draft of "Mourning and melancholia”, written in 1915 and published
in 1996. After presenting a summary of the main theses of Freud’s draft, Abraham’s and Ferenczi’s
reactions to the text are discussed as well as Freud’s response to their comments. In addition to
reviewing Freud’s partial adoption of Ferenczi’s introjection and his reluctance towards Abraham’s
“mouth eroticism and sadism” the article considers the question whether and to what extent his dis-
ciples’ interjections — particularly Abraham’s approach — made their way into the final version of
"Mourning and melancholia”. The article closes with integrating the notion of narcissistic identifi-
cation, which forms the core of Freud’s understanding of depression, and his study of the “prelimi-
nary stages of love”, written the same year, into a conceptualization of the narcissistic relationship
between subject and object. Special attention is paid to the clinical relevance of the difference
between narcissistic and libidinal object cathexis, which Freud had introduced.

En conversation : Freud, Abraham et Ferenczi sur « Deuil et mélancolie » (1915–1918). Cet article est
consacré au brouillon de « Deuil et mélancolie » de Freud, rédigé en 1915 et publié en 1996. Après
avoir résumé les principales thèses de ce brouillon, l’auteure passe en revue les réactions d’Abraham
et de Ferenczi à ce texte, ainsi que la réponse de Freud à leurs commentaires. Elle aborde la question
de l’adoption partielle par Freud de la notion d’introjection élaborée par Ferenczi, ainsi que sa
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 95

réticence envers « l’érotisme et le sadisme oral » d’Abraham, puis, dans un second temps, elle pose la
question de savoir dans quelle mesure les interjections de ses disciples – en particulier l’approche
d’Abraham – ont pu se frayer un chemin jusque dans la version finale de « Deuil et mélancolie »,
dont la conclusion intègre la notion d’identification narcissique - qui constitue le noyau de la com-
préhension freudienne de la dépression, comme de son étude des « stades préliminaires de l’amour »
qu’il écrivit la même année – à une conceptualisation de la relation narcissique entre le sujet et
l’objet. Une attention particulière est portée à la pertinence clinique de la différence entre investisse-
ment narcissique et investissement libidinal de l’objet, que Freud introduisit.

Freud, Abraham und Ferenczi im Gespräch über „Trauer und Melancholie“ (1915–1918). Freuds
Entwurf von „Trauer und Melancholie“, verfasst 1915 und veröffentlicht 1996, steht im Zentrum
der Untersuchung. Nach einer Zusammenfassung der Thesen des Entwurfs werden Ferenczis und
Abrahams Reaktionen auf den Text sowie Freuds Kommentar zu ihren Stellungnahmen dargestellt.
Freuds partielle Übernahme von Ferenczis Introjektion und seine Zurückhaltung gegenüber Abra-
hams „Munderotik und Sadismus“ werden erörtert sowie die Frage, ob und inwiefern die Einwürfe
der Schüler in die Endfassung von „Trauer und Melancholie“ einflossen, insbesondere Abrahams the-
oretischer Ansatz. Abschließend wird der Begriff der narzisstischen Identifizierung, der den Kern von
Freuds Verständnis der Depression bildet, mit seinen aus der gleichen Zeit stammenden Ausführun-
gen über die „Vorstufen der Liebe“ zu einem Bild der narzisstischen Beziehung zwischen Subjekt und
Objekt zusammengefügt, unter Betonung der klinischen Relevanz der von Freud entwickelten Differ-
enz zwischen der narzisstischen und libidinösen Besetzung des Objekts.

Freud, Abraham e Ferenczi in conversazione su “Lutto e melanconia” (1915–1918). Il presente articolo

si concentra sulla stesura preliminare di “Lutto e melanconia”, scritta da Freud nel 1915 e pubblicata
poi nel 1996. Dopo un iniziale riassunto delle tesi principali esposte da Freud in questa sua prima
versione, vengono discusse le reazioni di Abraham e Ferenczi al testo e quindi la risposta di Freud
ai loro commenti. Oltre a esaminare la parziale adozione del concetto ferencziano di introiezione
da parte di Freud e le riserve che quest’ultimo aveva invece rispetto all’idea di “erotismo e
sadismo orale” di Abraham, si cercherà qui di valutare se e in quale misura i contributi dei due dis-
cepoli – e in particolare quello di Abraham – siano in qualche modo entrati a far parte della versione
finale di “Lutto e melanconia”. L’articolo si chiude integrando l’idea di identificazione narcisistica, che
è al centro della teoria di Freud sulla depressione, e il suo studio sugli “stadi preliminari dell’amore”,
scritto nello stesso anno, entro una più ampia concettualizzazione della relazione narcisistica tra sog-
getto e oggetto. Particolare attenzione sarà dedicata a questo proposito all’importanza che in
ambito clinico ha la distinzione, introdotta da Freud, tra un investimento oggettuale di tipo narcisis-
tico e uno di tipo libidico.

En conversación: Freud, Abraham y Ferenczi sobre “Duelo y melancolía “ (1915–1918). Este artículo se
concentra en el borrador de Freud de “Duelo y melancolía”, escrito en 1915 y publicado en 1996.
Luego de presentar un resumen de las principales tesis de aquel borrador, la autora examina las reac-
ciones de Abraham y Ferenczi a dicho texto, así como la respuesta de Freud a los comentarios de
ambos. Además de revisar la adopción parcial de Freud de la idea de introyección de Ferenczi así
como su reticencia al “erotismo bucal y sadismo” de Abraham, se considera la cuestión sobre si
las intervenciones de sus discípulos —en particular el enfoque de Abraham— lograron ser incorpor-
adas, y en qué medida, a la versión final de “Duelo y melancolía”. El artículo termina integrando la
idea de identificación narcisista, que constituye el núcleo de cómo entiende Freud la depresión, y
su estudio de “las etapas preliminares del amor”, escrito aquel mismo año, en una conceptualización
de la relación entre sujeto y objeto. Se presta especial atención a la relevancia clínica de la diferencia
entre catexis narcisista del objeto y catexis libidinal del objeto, introducidas por Freud.

References
Abraham, K. 1912. “Notes on the Psycho-Analytic Investigation and Treatment of Manic-Depressive
Insanity and Allied Conditions.” In Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, translated by D. Bryan and A.
Strachey, 137–156. London: Hogarth, 1927.
Abraham, K. 1916–17. “The First Pregenital Stage of the Libido.” In Selected Papers of Karl Abraham,
translated by D. Bryan and A. Strachey, 248–279. London: Hogarth, 1927.
96 U. MAY

Abraham, K. 1920. “Special Pathology and Therapy of the Neuroses and Psychoses.” The International
Journal of Psychoanalysis 1: 280–285.
Abraham, K. 1924. “A Short Study of the Development of the Libido, Viewed in the Light of Mental
Disorders.” In Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, translated by D. Bryan and A. Strachey, 418–501.
London: Hogarth, 1927.
Abraham, K. 1969, 1970. Psychoanalytische Studien, edited by J. Cremerius, Vol 2. Frankfurt a. M.:
Fischer.
Abraham, K. and J. Harnik. 1921. “Spezielle Pathologie und Therapie der Neurosen und Psychosen.” In
Bericht über die Fortschritte der Psychoanalyse in den Jahren 1914–1919, edited by O. Rank, 141–163.
Leipzig, Wien, Zürich: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag.
Bentinck, van Schoonheten A. 2013. Karl Abraham. Life and Work, translated by L. Waters. London:
Karnac, 2016.
Bericht über die Fortschritte der Psychoanalyse in den Jahren 1914–1919. 1921. Edited by O. Rank.
Leipzig, Wien, Zürich: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag.
Breuer, J. and S. Freud. 1895. Studies on Hysteria. SE 2.
Compton, A. 1985. “The Concept of Identification in the Work of Freud, Ferenczi, and Abraham: A
Review and Commentary.” The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 54: 200–233.
Dahl, G. 2015. „‘Ich gebe zu, daß diese Frage die heikelste der ganzen psychoanalytischen Lehre ist’
(Freud 1918b). Karl Abrahams Beitrag zur Weiterentwicklung der psychoanalytischen Lehre.”
Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse 70: 213–244.
Eickhoff, F.-W. 2008. „Einige Aspekte der Trauer. Über das Kontinuum von normaler und patholo-
gischer Trauer und manisch-depressiven Zuständen.” Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse 56: 51–68.
Eickhoff, F.-W. 2009. „Bemerkungen über die oft vergessene primäre Identifizierung und die
Geschichte dieses Begriffs.” Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse, Beiheft 24: 13–20.
Etchegoyen, H. R. 1985. „Identification and its Vicissitudes.” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis
66: 3–18.
Falzeder, E. and A. Haynal. 2002. “Introduction to the Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud
and Karl Abraham 1907–1925. In The Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Karl
Abraham 1907–1925, edited by E. Falzeder and translated by C. Schwarzacher, in collaboration
with C. H. Trollope and K. Majthényi King, Vol. 1, xix–xxx. London: Karnac.
Falzeder, E. and L. M. Hermanns. 2009. „Einleitung.” In Sigmund Freud / Karl Abraham. Briefwechsel
1907–1925, edited by E. Falzeder and L. H. Hermanns, Vol. 1, 7–48. Wien: Turia and Kant.
Ferenczi, S. 1909. “Introjection and Transference.” In First Contributions to Psycho-Analysis, translated
by E. Jones, 35–93. London: Karnac, 1952.
Ferenczi, S. 1912. “On the Definition of Introjection.” In Final Contributions to the Problems and
Methods of Psycho-Analysis, edited by M. Balint and translated by E. Mosbacher et al., London:
Karnac, 1955.
Ferenczi, S. 1913. “Stages in the Development of the Sense of Reality.” In First Contributions to Psycho-
Analysis, translated by E. Jones, 213–239. London: Karnac, 1952.
Ferenczi, S. 1920. “General Theory of the Neuroses.” The International Journal of Psychoanalsis 1: 294–
315.
Ferenczi, S. 1921. „Allgemeine Neurosenlehre.” In Bericht über die Fortschritte der Psychoanalyse,
edited by O. Rank, 81–123. Leipzig, Wien, Zürich: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag.
Ferenczi, S. 1984 [1914]. “A Contribution to the Understanding of the Psycho-Neuroses of the Age of
Involution.” In Final contributions to the problems and methods of psycho-analysis, edited by M.
Balint and translated by E. Mosbacher et al., 205–212. London: Karnac, 1955.
Freud, S. 1900. “The Interpretation of Dreams.” SE 4.
Freud, S. 1905. “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality.” SE 7: 123–246.
Freud, S. 1909. “Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis.” SE 10: 151–318.
Freud, S. 1910. “Contributions to a Discussion on Suicide.” SE 11: 231–232.
Freud, S. 1912–13. “Totem and Taboo.” SE 13: 1–162.
Freud, S. 1913. “The Disposition to Obsessional Neurosis: A Contribution to the Problem of the Choice
of Neurosis.” SE 12: 311–326.
Freud, S. 1914. On narcissism. SE 14: 73–102.
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 97

Freud, S. 1915a. “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes.” SE 14: 109–140. – Studienausgabe 3: 75–102.
Freud, S. 1915b. “Repression.” SE 14: 151–158.
Freud, S. 1915c. “The Unconscious.” SE 14: 159–215. – Studienausgabe 3: 119–162.
Freud, S. 1915d. “A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the Psycho-Analytic Theory of the Disease.”
SE 14: 261–272. – Studienausgabe 7: 205–216.
Freud, S. 1916–17a. “Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis.” SE 15–16.
Freud, S. 1916–17b. “Mourning and Melancholia.” SE 14: 237–258. – Studienausgabe 3: 193–212.
Freud, S. 1918. “From the History of an Obsessional Neurosis.” SE 17: 1–124.
Freud, S. 1921. “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.” SE 18: 65–144.
Freud, S. 1923. “The Ego and the Id.” SE 19: 1–66.
Freud, S. 1925. “Negation.” SE 19: 233–240.
Freud, S. 1985 [1915]. A Phylogenetic Phantasy: Overview of the Transference Neuroses, edited by
I. Grubrich-Simitis, translated by A. Hoffer and P.T. Hoffer, Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1987.
Freud, S. and K. Abraham. 2002. In The Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham
1907–1925, edited by E. Falzeder and translated by C. Schwarzacher, in collaboration with
C. H. Trollope and K. Majthényi King, Vol. 1, xix–xxx. London: Karnac.
Freud, S., and S. Ferenczi. 1993–2000. The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sandor Ferenczi, 3
vols, edited by E. Brabant, E. Falzeder and P. Giampieri-Deutsch and translated by P.T. Hoffer; intro-
ductions by A. Haynal, A. Hoffer and J. Dupont. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
Hämäläinen, O. 2009. “The Relationship of the Inner and Outer in Psychoanalysis.” The International
Journal of Psychoanalysis 90: 1277–1297.
Haynal, A. 2014. “Trauma Revisited – Ferenczi and Modern Psychoanalysis.” Psychoanalytic Inquiry 34:
98–111.
Hitschmann, E. 1920. „Theory of Instinct and Sexuality.” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 1:
275–280.
Hitschmann, E. 1921. „Trieblehre.” In Bericht über die Fortschritte der Psychoanalyse in den Jahren
1914–1919, edited by O. Rank, 44–51. Leipzig, Wien, Zürich: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer
Verlag.
Küchenhoff, J. 1996. „Trauer, Melancholie und das Schicksal der Objektbeziehungen.” Jahrbuch der
Psychoanalyse 36: 90–117.
Landauer, K. 1914. „Spontanheilung einer Katatonie.” In Theorie der Affekte und andere Schriften zur
Ich-Organisation, edited by H. J. Rothe, 123–143. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1991.
Laplanche, J. and J. B. Pontalis. 1967. The Language of Psycho-Analysis, translated by D. Nicholson-
Smith. London: Hogarth, 1973.
Ludin, J. 2015. “Zur Aktualität des Narzissmuskonzepts” Unpublished lecture 28, June 2015.
Lussier, M. 2000. “‘Mourning and Melancholia’: The Genesis of a Text and of a Concept.” The
International Journal of Psychoanalysis 81: 667–686.
Matte-Blanco, I. 1941. “On Introjection and the Processes of Psychic Metabolism.” The International
Journal of Psychoanalysis 22: 17–36.
May[-Tolzmann], U. 1997. “Abraham’s Discovery of the ’Bad Mother’. A Contribution to the History of
the Theory of Depression.” In Freud at Work. On the History of Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice,
With an Analysis of Freud’s Patient Record Books, 41–71. London: Routledge, 2018.
May, U. 2006. „Freud’s Patient Record Books (1910–1920): On the Duration and Frequency of Thirty-
six of Freud’s Analyses.” In Freud at Work. On the History of Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice, With
an Analysis of Freud’s Patient Record Books, 233–323. London: Routledge, 2018.
May, U. 2010. „Karl Abraham’s Revolution of 1916: From Sensual Sucking to the Oral-Aggressive Wish
of Destruction.” In Freud at Work. On the History of Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice, With an
Analysis of Freud’s Patient Record Books, 95–116. London: Routledge, 2018.
May, U. 2011. „Towards Karl Abraham’s, A Short Study of the Development of the Libido (1924)’.
August Stärcke’s Contribution to the Theory of Orality.” In Freud at Work. On the History of
Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice, With an Analysis of Freud’s Patient Record Books, 117–135.
London: Routledge, 2018.
98 U. MAY

May, U. 2016. „Das Objekt verdunkelt das Ich. Victor Tausks und Karl Landauers Beiträge zum Begriff
der narzisstischen Identifizierung im Entwurf von Freuds, Trauer und Melancholie.” Jahruch der
Psychoanalyse 72: 173–208.
Meissner, W. W. 1970–72. “Notes on Identification I, II and III.” The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 39: 563–
589; 40: 277–302; 41: 224–260.
Meyer-Palmedo, I. and G. Fichtner. 1999. Freud-Bibliographie mit Werkkonkordanz, 2nd printing,
Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer.
Nunberg, H. and Federn, E. 1962–1975. Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, translated by H.
Nunberg and H. Collins, Vol 4. New York: International Universities Press.
Ogden, Th. 2002. “A New Reading of the Origins of Object Relations Theory.” The International Journal
of Psychoanalysis 83: 767–782.
Quinodoz, J.-M. 2004. Reading Freud: A Chronological Exploration of Freud’s Writings, translated by
D. Alcorn. London: Routledge, 2011.
Quinodoz, J.-M. 2009. “Teaching Freud’s ‘Mourning and melancholia.’” In On Freud’s ‘Mourning and
melancholia’, edited by L. G. Fiorini, T. Bokanowski and S. Lewkowicz, 179–192. London: Karnac.
Strachey, J. 1957. “Editor’s Note. Trauer und Melancholie.” SE 14: 239–242.
Tausk, V. 1913. „Autoabstract of ,Die psychologische und pathologische Bedeutung des Narzissismus.
Ein Beitrag.’” In Zwei Berichte über den 4. Psychoanalytischen Kongress in München, 7–8 September
1913, ed. by M. Schröter. Luzifer–Amor 26: 103–104, 2013.
Widlocher, D. 1985. “The Wish for Identification and Structural Effects in the Work of Freud.” The
International Journal of Psychoanalysis 66: 31–45.
Wisdom, J. O. 1962. “Comparison and Development of the Psycho-Analytical Theories of Melancholia.
The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 43: 113–132.
Wittenberger, G. and Ch. Tögel. 1999. Die Rundbriefe des „Geheimen Komitees“, Vol 1, 1913–1920.
Tübingen: Edition diskord.
Zepf, S. and S. Hartmann. 2005. “Konzepte der Identifizierung. Versuch ihrer theoretischen und kli-
nischen Differenzierung.” Forum der Psychoanalyse 21: 30–42.
Zienert-Eilts, K. 2013. Karl Abraham. Eine Biografie im Kontext der psychoanalytischen Bewegung.
Gießen: Psychosozial.