Sudden Death and Early Widowhood - The Individual Psychotherapy and Family Therapy After Trauma

Abstract

A paper presented at the Brazilian Congress on Family Therapy briefly shows how the Winnicott focus has been a strong technical support for emergency help to a man and his daughter facing the loss of their wife and mother. At first it was necessary an evaluation of the daughter, accompanied by the father in some sessions. The father was taken into the process only after it was considered that the girl would be able to overcome her recent mother’s death. The wife’s death could be understood through other losses suffered by the patient in his family, and this helped him recover the will to live.