The author hypothesizes that the observed pathogenic effects on a child
of the death of a parent are the result of the family's culture-bound
inability to integrate death as a natural part of the process of living.
The family tries to deal with death by the avoidance mechanisms of myth and
family mystification; it is this process which is pathogenic rather than
the experience with death itself. To illustrate his thesis he presents the
case history of a man who was fatally affected by the family myth and
mystification process.Abstract Teaser