Chapter
The Dead Mother
La mère morte
André Green's essay on the dead mother complex, first given as a lecture to the Société psychanalytique de Paris in 1980 and published in 1983 as the last chapter of Narcissisme de vie, narcissisme de mort. The dead mother is not a mother who has died. She stays alive and present but becomes psychically absent, sunk in depression, often after a loss of her own, and withdraws her investment from the child. The child withdraws its investment from her in turn and identifies unconsciously with the 'dead' mother, which leaves a cold, empty core beneath a later life that may look ordinary. Green presents the complex as something discovered in the transference: it may be invisible when an analysis begins, and it appears as a depression in the transference, the repetition of an infantile depression that often cannot be remembered. The essay appeared in English as 'The Dead Mother' in On Private Madness (1986), and in Hebrew as a separate book.
Main ideas
- The dead mother is a mother who stays alive and present but becomes psychically absent, usually through depression after a loss of her own.
- The child answers the loss of her living presence by withdrawing its own investment from her and identifying unconsciously with the 'dead' mother.
- The result is a cold, empty core beneath an outwardly ordinary life, showing as an inability to love, to take pleasure and to invest new objects.
- The complex is discovered in the transference: it may be invisible at first and emerges as a transference depression that repeats an infantile depression, often not remembered.
- First a 1980 lecture, the essay closes Green's 1983 book on narcissism, and has reached English and Hebrew readers in translation.
What it shows
André Green introduced Dead mother complex
Green set out the dead mother complex in his essay « La mère morte », collected in Narcissisme de vie, narcissisme de mort (1983): the child's inner world is organised around a mother who, though alive, has withdrawn her investment, usually through depression or mourning.