Mourning, melancholia and machines: An applied psychoanalytic investigation of mourning in the age of griefbots*

Abstract

ABSTRACT Death and mourning are being shaped by posthumous opportunities for the dead to affect current life in ways not possible in pre-digital generations. The psychological and sociological impact of the dead ‘online’ and of ‘grief tech’ is only beginning to be understood. It has not yet been explored psychoanalytically until this paper that examines one type of grief tech, namely the griefbot. This development is critically explored through a psychoanalytic reading of an episode of Black Mirror. I suggest that a psychoanalytic model of mourning provides an invaluable perspective to help us to think about this technology’s potential as well as the psychological and ethical risks it poses. I argue that the immortalisation of the dead through digital permanence works against facing the painful reality of loss and the recognition of otherness, which is fundamental to psychic growth and to the integrity of our relationships with others. Drawing on Derrida’s conceptualization of ‘originary mourning’, I suggest that mourning is an interminable process that challenges us to preserve within the self the otherness of the lost object. The tools we use for mourning need to be assessed first and foremost against this psychological and fundamentally ethical process.