Death’s Chair: Sitting with Loss

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper I offer personal encounters with illness and death in an attempt to actualize what I am imploring analysts to pursue: a close examination of their relationship with mortality. I lament the problematic absence of attention to mortality in psychoanalytic theory and therapy and argue that we must undertake preparatory work in this realm to avoid harming those we endeavor to support and to promote generative opportunities for growth and healing for our patients and ourselves.