On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia - Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a neurologist and important Austrian psychologist. He is considered the father of psychoanalysis and still a strong influencer of contemporary Social Psychology. The article "Mourning and Melancholia" by Sigmund Freud first appeared in 1917 in the Internationale Zeitschrif fur­Arztlich Psychoanalyse, and was later published in the first set of books of Freud's metapsychological works and General Writings on the Theory of Neuroses in 1918. In this text, Freud seeks to make considerations regarding the nature of melancholia by comparing it to the normal affect of mourning and discussing its manifestations of psychogenic origin. The correlation Freud draws between mourning and melancholia is justified by the similarity in the overall picture of these two manifestations. "Mourning and Melancholia" is a small masterpiece among the vast series of texts published by the great Austrian psychologist.