Les deuils pathologiques différés en psychiatrie de l'âge avancé: Clinique et psychopathologie

Abstract

This article examines the hypothesis whereby previous losses denied by the subject would be likely to decompensate in old age, as a result of the combined effect of the loss itself, the result of a normal, but also pathological, aging process, and of specific psychopathological mechanisms. Thus, in a joint theoretical-clinical axis, it is necessary to analyse the psychological processes at work in the formation of delayed pathological mourning, marking the onset of late psychiatric manifestations in reaction to these non-performed losses. With this in mind, a whole line of research in psychiatry of the elderly on the outbreak of diseases of mourning occurring long after the initial loss, unfolds. © 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS.