Drive theory and mourning

Freud (1917/1957) described the mourner as one who suffers because of the loss of internal attachment to the deceased person and the goal of mourning is to separate the libidinal investment from the lost object (Baker, 2001). The mourner who has not relinquished the libidinal tie with the deceased may endure suffering. Although Freud’s view is by in large endorsed in psychoanalysis, later psychoanalysts disagreed with his theoretical formulations with regard to mourning. Bowlby (1980) concluded from his extensive research on attachment and loss that many healthy individuals maintain a libidinal tie with the deceased without a pathological effect (Baker, 2001). Increasing research appears to lend credence to the notion that some kind of relationship to the image of the deceased continue to remain with the

mourner. Thus, some researchers support the need to re-conceptualize some of Freud’s views on mourning.