Anticipated Loss and Mourning in Adolescence: Based on Film 'Monster Calls'

Loss is a universal phenomenon that anyone can experience, and mourning is a process of adapting to a new phase of life accompanied by loss. Loss can cause psychological trauma, which in turn can have a negative impact on subsequent lives. Loss of important objects such as parents, especially those experienced in children and adolescents, is important for mourning experience and has a significant impact on the mental structure of post-loss adulthood. In addition, adolescence is a creative period in which a new identity has to be formed away from the previous stage of development, accompanied by inevitable loss. ‘A monster calls’ is a film contains a developmental process of mourning for the teenager in the predictive loss situation. The author analyzed ‘A monster calls’ and gained insight into the mental characteristics of adolescents and studied the developmental mourning process. In conclusion, it was found that accepting the inevitability of the relationship and the inevitability of the loss, and undergoing the mourning process of internalizing and identifying the lost object through developmental mourning is an essential element in the development and maturation of all human beings as well as adolescents. Psychoanalysis 2018;29(3):54-62