Intimate Contact in the Landscape of Mortality: Commentary on Papers by Rachel Kozlowski and Kirsten Lentz.

The following is a discussion of papers by Kozlowski and Lentz that explore the presence of mortality in the analytic relationship. The author reflects on challenges to the dyad, the vulnerability of the analyst, and how the individual and analytic pair may confront their existential reality separately or together. The author includes the idea of "death origin stories" to emphasize that mortality has a presence throughout the life of the individual; she suggests how psychoanalytic theory and technique may be enhanced by including an explanation of the earliest penetration of death into consciousness and whether this lens may enhance our sensitivity to mortality and our ability to manage loss and endings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]