Object losses and resolutions of women in middle adulthood.

Women in middle adulthood frequently experience loss of objects during this life stage, and thus their psychiatric disorders are often related to object losses. This paper presents three cases of women in middle adulthood whose onset of illness was precipitated by object loss and discusses the psychodynamics, nature of their object loss and mourning process. All three cases presented symptoms of depressive anxiety, paranoid reaction and hypochondriacal anxiety, however, the onset of their illness was related to losses of objects. In addition, it was found that they had not resolved grief towards other losses in the past which preceded the object loss that precipitated the illness. Furthermore, the patients found new objects after completing their mourning process. However, these were not new objects, but rather a rediscovery of objects which they had lost in the past. Such findings are thought to be useful, not only in the treatment of women in middle adulthood, but also in elucidating psychiatric disorders which are precipitated by loss of objects.