Thank you for this piece - brings up a lot for me.
One thing I would like to mention - I wonder whether it is always the case that melancholia has to do with loss, lack, etc... In fact I would say I am quite convinced that there exist cases of melancholia where the dimension of loss is precisely missing. I suppose a Lacanian refrain comes to mind, concerning 'the loss of the space of loss.' I have in mind here, in particular, Russell Grigg's notion of melancholia: "...Freud’s comparison of mourning and melancholia is misleading... as Freud himself recognises, the attack upon the self in melancholia is too devastating for it to be fully understood as internalised aggression against the object, and so some other explanation of the origins of melancholia needs to be found. I then argue for the thesis that the melancholic suffers from the invasive presence of an object and not, as Freud’s work suggests, from an inability to accept the loss of an object."
In short, for me Melancholia has much more to do with presence, positivity, etc than loss, absence, negativity. What do you think of this?
Thank you for this piece - brings up a lot for me.
One thing I would like to mention - I wonder whether it is always the case that melancholia has to do with loss, lack, etc... In fact I would say I am quite convinced that there exist cases of melancholia where the dimension of loss is precisely missing. I suppose a Lacanian refrain comes to mind, concerning 'the loss of the space of loss.' I have in mind here, in particular, Russell Grigg's notion of melancholia: "...Freud’s comparison of mourning and melancholia is misleading... as Freud himself recognises, the attack upon the self in melancholia is too devastating for it to be fully understood as internalised aggression against the object, and so some other explanation of the origins of melancholia needs to be found. I then argue for the thesis that the melancholic suffers from the invasive presence of an object and not, as Freud’s work suggests, from an inability to accept the loss of an object."
In short, for me Melancholia has much more to do with presence, positivity, etc than loss, absence, negativity. What do you think of this?