On December 16th, 2016, I went to Bethesda, Maryland to talk with Dr. Kerry Malawista and Dr. Irene Landsman, two therapists who have both written memoirs in which they explore their experiences of losing their mothers as girls.
These two incredibly thoughtful, reflective, talented women engaged with me in an open-hearted, honest conversation about mothers, mothering, loss, mourning, and writing.
In Part I of the podcast, they describe themselves and their families before, during, and after the loss of their mothers, telling the unique details of their stories and reading passages from their books that pull the listener right into their experiences.
In Part II they go into more detail about their development as writers, and they share some profound observations about the mourning process as something intimately involved in identity, presence (vs. absence), and creativity.
Part I
scroll down below Part II for further information
Part II
~~~
A Poem
Here is a rather apt poem by Irene’s mother, the poet FrancEye, sent to me by Irene with this comment:
“S. S. Veri was a pen name my mother used for a while in the early 1960’s. She wrote this, I’m pretty certain, in 1963, in the first year after she left the family. She was in relationship with Bukowski but not living with him yet. This literary magazine no longer exists and there isn’t any online version of it or of this poem.”
Keeping House III
So the wanderer leaves
his nest in the care of
the one at home.
A mistake. She can’t care
for the nest
without
the builder.
Out the window with you,
dog, cat, canary, and crockery.
Nobody wants you now,
poor
children.
— S. S. Veri (aka Frances Dean Smith) in Sciamachy, Vol. 6, 1964
~~~
The Music
“Goodnight Irene” Weavers version
“Goodnight Irene” Leadbelly version
Click here for information about the podcast’s background music
A Partial Bibliography of Relevant Readings:
Akhtar, S. (2011). Matters of life and death: Psychoanalytic reflections. London: Karnac Books.
Auster, P. (2007/1982). The invention of solitude. London: Penguin Books.
Baldwin, J. (2012/1955). Notes of a native son. Boston: Beacon Press.
Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss volume III: Loss, sadness and depression. New York: Basic Books.
Dickens, C. (1971). Bleak House. London: Penguin Books.
Edelman, H. (2006). Motherless daughters: The legacy of loss (Second ed.). Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.
Fleming, J. (1974). The problem of diagnosis in parent loss cases. Contemporary Psychoanalysis (10), 439-451.
Frankiel, R. (Ed.). (1994). Essential papers on object loss. New York: New York University Press.
Freud Museum London: Psychoanalysis Podcasts. (June 7, 2016). Art and mourning: The role of creativity in healing trauma and loss [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-kaktp-5ff372
Freud, S. (1994/1917). Mourning and melancholia. In R. V. Frankiel, Essential papers on object loss (J. Strachey, Trans., pp. 38-51). New York: New York University Press.
Furman, E. (1974). A child’s parent dies: Studies in childhood bereavement. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Gaines, R. (1997). Detachment and continuity. Contemporary Psychoanalysis , 33, 549-547.
Gavron, J. (2016). A woman on the edge of time. New York: The Experiment, LLC.
Gerson, B. (Ed.). (1996). The therapist as a person: Life crises, life choices, life experiences, and their effects on treatment. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press.
Gurevich, H. (2008). The language of absence. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 89(3), 561-578.
Hagman, G. (2001). Beyond decathexis: Toward a new psychoanalytic understanding and treatment of mourning. In R. Neimeyer (Ed.), Meaning reconstruction and the experience of loss. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Haine, R. A., Wolchik, S. A., Sandler, I. N., Milsap, R. E. and Ayers, T. S. (2006). Positive parenting as a protective resource for parentally bereaved children. Death Studies (30), 1-28.
Harris, M. (1995). The loss that is forever: The lifelong impact of the early death of a mother or father. New York: E.P. Dutton.
Khan, M. M. R. (1996). The Privacy of the self: Papers on psychoanalytic theory and technique. London: Karnac Books.
Kuchuck, S. (Ed.). (2014). Clinical implications of the psychoanalyst’s life experience: When the personal becomes professional. New York: Routledge.
Loewald, H.W. (1960). On the Therapeutic Action of Psycho-Analysis. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 41, 16-33.
Loewald, H. W. (1973). On internalization. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis , 54, 9-17.
Neimeyer, R. A. (2001). Meaning reconstruction and the experience of loss. Washington, D. C.: American Psychological Association.
Ogden, T. H. (2000). Borges and the art of mourning. Psychoanalytic Dialogues , 10, 65-88.
Parkes, C. M. (2001). Bereavement: Studies of grief in adult life (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Pollock, G. H. (1989). The mourning process, the creative process, and the creation. In D. R. Dietrich and P. C. Shabad (eds.) The problem of loss and mourning: Psychoanalytic perspectives (pp. 27-59). Madison, CT: International Universities Press, Inc.
Saler, L. and Skolnick, N. (1992). Childhood parental death and depression in adulthood: Roles of surviving parent and family environment. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry , 62 (4), 504-516.
Schuurman, D. (2003). Never the same: Coming to terms with the death of a parent. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Shapiro, E. (2008). Whose recovery of what? : Relationships and environments promoting grief and growth. Death Studies (32), 40-58.
Shenk, J. W. (June 2009). What makes us happy? (J. Bennet, Ed.) The Atlantic , 303 (5), pp. 41-53.
Slade, A. (2005). Parental reflective functioning: An introduction. Attachment and Human Development , 7, 769-782.
Tremblay, G. C. and Israel, A. C. (1998). Children’s adjustment to parental death. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice , 5 (4), 424-438.
Willock, B., Bohm, L, C. and Curtis, R. C. (2007). On deaths and endings: Psychoanalysts’ reflections on finality, transformations and new beginnings. New York: Routledge.
Winnicott, D. (1971). Playing and Reality. London: Tavistock Publications.
Wolfenstein, M. (1994/1966). How is mourning possible? In R. V. Frankiel (ed.) Essential papers on object loss (pp. 334-362). New York: New York University Press.
Worden, J. W. (1996). Children and Grief: When a parent dies. New York: Guilford Press.
Finding Absence 
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