The main questions raised in this book are: How does the analyst help the patient to be in touch with pain and mourning? Is the relinquishment of defenses always desirable? And what is the analyst's role in the mourning process-should the analyst struggle to help patients relinquish defenses against pain and mourning, which they may experience as vital to their precarious psychic survival? Or should he or she accompany patients on their way to self-discovery, which may or may not result in the patients letting go of their defenses when faced with the pain and mourning inherent in trauma? the utilization of various defenses and the resulting unresolved mourning reflect the magnitude of the anxiety and pain that is found on the road to mourning. The ability to mourn and the capacity to bear some helplessness while still finding life meaningful are the objectives of the analytic work in this book.

Part 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Revisiting defenses against pain and mourning Part 3 Obstacles to individual mourning Chapter 4 Forever young Chapter 5 Lust for love Part 6 Unresolved mourning and its bearing on society Chapter 7 Introduction Chapter 8 Romania and its unresolved mourning Chapter 9 From enactment to mental representation Chapter 10 Trauma, resilience and creative activity Chapter 11 On being a dead, beloved child Part 12 Obstacles to mourning in an age of terror Chapter 13 Who am I-Trauma and identity Chapter 14 The role of the analyst in the analytic cure during times of chronic stress Chapter 15 Working with Holocaust survivors' offspring in the shadow of terror Part 16 Epilogue