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This thesis examines Freud’s 1917 text Mourning and Melancholia paying particular attention to Freud’s concept of the Melancholic. Through the reading of Mourning and Melancholia, a question developed around the melancholic subject as a whole. Using the diagnostic system that Freud writes about in Mourning and Melancholia, this thesis examines the concepts of the loved/hated object choices, and the possible events and processes that have led to those object choices. Freud’s concepts of the id, the ego and the formation of the ego-ideal / super-ego, paying particular attention to the persecutory attacks of the harsh super-ego on the ego, narcissistic desire and narcissistic identification will also be explored. These concepts will then be applied to Freud’s 1920 case The Psychogenesis of a case of Homosexuality in a Woman. The research will show how this case by Freud is an example of Melancholia as set out in Freud’s text Mourning and Melancholia.
