Death is a much avoided topic. Literature does exist on mourning, but its focus remains upon the death of others. The fact of one's own mortality and its inevitable psychic impact on one's life is not optimally covered either in this literature or elsewhere in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Bringing together contributions from distinguished psychoanalysts, The Wound of Morality fills this gap by addressing the issue of death in a comprehensive manner.

Death is a much avoided topic. Literature on mourning exists, but it focuses chiefly upon the death of others. The inevitable psychic impact of one's own mortality is not optimally covered either in this literature on mourning or elsewhere in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. The Wound of Mortality brings together contributions from distinguished psychoanalysts to fill this gap by addressing the issue of death in a comprehensive manner. Among questions the contributors raise and seek to answer are: Do children understand the idea of death? How is adolescent bravado related to deeper anxieties about death? Is it normal and even psychologically healthy to think about one's own death during middle age? Does culture-at-large play a role in how individuals conceptualize the role of death in human life? Is death 'apart' from or 'a part' of life? Enhanced understanding of such matters will help mental health clinicians treat patients struggling with death-related concerns with greater empathy.

Chapter 1. Freud'sTodesangst and Ghalib'sIshrat-e-Qatra: Two Perspectives on Death
Chapter 2. What Happens When You Die: Three to Four Year Olds Chatting About Death
Chapter 3. Children's Understanding of Death
Chapter 4. Symbolic Death: East and West
Chapter 5. It Is Not Over When It's Over: Reflections on Death and Mourning
Chapter 6. Fear of Death: Analyst and Patient in the Same Boat
Chapter 7. The Dead Self Must Be Reborn
Chapter 8. Living to Die and Dying to Live: Normal and Pathological Considerations of Death Anxiety
Chapter 9. Facing Death: Intrapsychic Conflict and Intergenerational Passage
Chapter 10. Eastern Intersubjectivity: Relational Homes for Frailty and Death
Chapter 11. Demise and Illusion
Chapter 12. Is That All There Is?: A Concluding Commentary on Psychoanalysis and Death