| pubmed-article:1641506 | pubmed:abstractText | The book The Inability to Mourn by Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich appeared in 1967 and claimed to provide a diagnosis of the era in which it was written. Superficially at least, its public impact was considerable. Rereading the work 25 years later, Tilmann Moser has profound misgivings as to the accuracy of the Mitscherlichs' diagnosis. He characterises the authors' approach as a mixture of analytic-cum-therapeutic, political and pedagogical attitudes and suggests that this was largely inappropriate to the task of identifying the actual psychic condition of the "generation of culprits" and of encouraging self-recognition and a disposition for change. Moser posits the "tragic paradox" that the people implicated in this crime require empathy if they are to genuinely break with the past. | lld:pubmed |
