Episode 33.The Phantom of Emptiness. On the Psychodynamics of White Depression.
Lives of the Unconscious. A Podcast on Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
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White Depression - The Inner Crypt of the Mother
No matter how much it seems from the outside that the fire in their relationship has died out, on the inside, the child's attachment to its mother remains heavily charged. This is crucial to the development of white depression. Even if interactions with the mother are not very nourishing, or have even ceased entirely, the bond will not dissolve because the mother is still there. A complex and extremely stable attachment to the lifeless caregiver is formed, but now with a poisonous core. In psychoanalytic terms one also speaks of the conservation of the object. No mourning is possible, no tears can flow. At the core of the self, time stands still, nothing changes.
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