“In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself.”

“In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself.”

― Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia"

Here you can download Freud's essay Mourning and Melancholia.

In this essay, Freud argues that mourning and melancholia are similar but different responses to loss. In mourning, a person deals with the grief of losing of a specific love object, and this process takes place in the conscious mind. In melancholia, a person grieves for a loss he is unable to fully comprehend or identify, and thus this process takes place in the unconscious mind. Mourning is considered a healthy and natural process of grieving a loss, while melancholia is considered pathological.

See also:

The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression by Darian Leader

On Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia"