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"THE WORK OF MOURNING"
Susan Kavaler-Adler
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"Mourning loss is a part of life that every human experiences in one form or another. Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler has been a practicing clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst for over 40 years. Within her extensive experience in the field, and through her own personal dealings with grief, she’s understood that each individual mourning process has its own pattern, dimensions, and length; and the length should not be pathologized and medicated. Understanding it, and accompanying it in a healing and developmental therapeutic process, is the key to the developmental process of mourning."
“Through my own experiences of mourning my own losses, particularly with my father, who I still can say I’m grieving over, I was able to make theoretical contributions in my field pertaining to my concept of ‘developmental mourning.’ I wrote books and journal articles about how critical it is to consciously feel and process grief and loss, and to also face the fears and aggression that emerge from within us as we face the pain, longing, memory, and renewed love, which comes with such mourning. It was a fundamental part of my own growth and transformation as an individual, and therefore became one of the most important focuses of my career.”
Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler
Director of the Object-Relations Institute
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“Through the support given in a therapeutic environment, also known as the holding environment, it becomes possible for the individual to take risks in experiencing the emotions within them that previously they viewed as too intense to take on alone. The support and knowledge that a therapist provides after building a trusting relationship with their patient can grant the individual the courage they need in order to face the things within themselves that might’ve felt too intimidating to face on their own. Especially when they’re in a situation where they experienced early trauma that taught them to repress negative emotions.”
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"Through a developmental progression (with backlash reactions along the way) of affectively engaged stages of mourning (developmental mourning). Developmental mourning opens up a capacity for a psychic dialectic between one’s self-reflective and rational self and one’s internal world of feelings, thoughts, needs, and all one’s spontaneous internal life.” “Interiority, compassion, self-reflection, and self-agency all evolve."
"Through the support given in a therapeutic environment, also known as the holding environment, it becomes possible for the individual to take risks in experiencing the emotions within them that previously they viewed as too intense to take on alone. The support and knowledge that a therapist provides after building a trusting relationship with their patient can grant the individual the courage they need in order to face the things within themselves that might’ve felt too intimidating to face on their own. Especially when they’re in a situation where they experienced early trauma that taught them to repress negative emotions."
"Using dance, writing, and other creative outlets as a means of helping my patients better understand their emotional responses is not only beneficial to their growth, but embraces their creative sides which for so many can become an outlet for their feelings. It can be hard to express yourself in times of trauma for a multitude of reasons, so by ‘roleplaying’ or taking on the roles of a dancer, writer, or any other creative title, you can separate yourself from your situation, while simultaneously learning how to express and analyze your own emotions.”
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