title: [Inability to mourn. Does the diagnosis hold up against an evaluation? On psychological processing of the Holocaust in Germany].
abstract: The book The Inability to Mourn by Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich appeared in 1967 and claimed to provide a diagnosis of the era in which it was written. Superficially at least, its public impact was considerable. Rereading the work 25 years later, Tilmann Moser has profound misgivings as to the accuracy of the Mitscherlichs' diagnosis. He characterises the authors' approach as a mixture of analytic-cum-therapeutic, political and pedagogical attitudes and suggests that this was largely inappropriate to the task of identifying the actual psychic condition of the "generation of culprits" and of encouraging self-recognition and a disposition for change. Moser posits the "tragic paradox" that the people implicated in this crime require empathy if they are to genuinely break with the past.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Moser
mesh_terms: D004645:Empathy; D005858:Germany; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D007585:Jews / Q000523:psychology*; D011056:Political Systems; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D012922:Social Change
vernacular_title: Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern: Hält die Diagnose einer Uberprüfung stand? Zur psychischen Verarbeitung des Holocaust in der Bundesrepublik.