This article deals with the suffering experienced in mourning, based on theoretical Freudian constructs. Freudian positions on mourning as a psychological phenomenon related to traditions of taboos are discussed, as well as human attitudes in the face of death. An analysis of these traditions allows one to see that there is affective ambivalence in the individual experience of suffering and in the culturally shared manifestations of mourning in a way that contributes to “grief work” on the cultural and intrapsychical levels.
Mourning; grief; taboo; affective ambivalence; culture