The function of introjection and incorporation in the experience of mourning and melancholy

• Grant number: 12/19226-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2013
• End date: December 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Thassia Souza Emidio
• Grantee: Thais Dainez Souza
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The proposed paper intends to present a reflection about the role of introjection and incorporation in the experience of mourning and melancholy. From the contribution of Hungarian author Sándor Ferenczi about the concept of introjection, the couple Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok, dedicated to analyzing the initial meaning that Ferenczi attributed to the term and considering the concept in the process of mourning. Therefore, they seek to resume the research about the experience of loss of the object, which was developed by Sigmund Freud, to elucidate the functioning of the incorporation that is a mechanism moving genuinely in an opposite direction of introjection. Thus, the project aims to articulate the metapsychological role of introjection and incorporation in order to understand both runs in the work of mourning and melancholy. For the proposed cut, we will use as a reference the Psychoanalysis theory, being this paper a theoretical and reflective survey. We believe that the research can offer a broader point of view, though in an incipient way, about the clinical and theoretical Ferenczi's reformulations concerning the experience of mourning and melancholy. (AU)