Joan Riviere's "The Bereaved Wife" (1945)

7-Occasional Reviews_CAFP_9.qxp 15/02/2019 10:05 Page 73 OCCASIONAL REVIEWS Joan Riviere’s “The bereaved wife” (1945) and beyond … Marion Bower In 1945, the war was over, but its aftermath was still being felt. Thousands of servicemen had been killed in the war and men, women, and children were killed in the Blitz. Europe was awash with parentless children. The British Psychoanalytical Society was still reeling from its own internal battles. Some of these conflicts were about its structure, but there was a more poisonous one between Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, who was now a refugee from Vienna. The mixture was stirred by Klein’s daughter, Melitta Schmideberg, who likened the Kleinians to Goebbels. The situation was saved by the psychoanalyst and educator, Susan Isaacs. She gave a brilliant paper linking the ideas of Freud and Klein. At the end of the war, the Society had its first female president, Sylvia Payne. Payne organised the “Ladies agreement” which created separate streams for Kleinian and Freudian candi- dates. Although disagreements rumbled on, some psychoanalysts felt able to turn their attention to the external world. In 1945, The New Era Fellowship magazine decided to devote a whole issue to the bringing-up of children during and after the war. Susan Isaacs was asked to write about fatherless children. She persuaded her former analyst Joan Riviere to write about the bereaved wife. Tall, beautiful, and brilliant, Riviere was the analyst of Bowlby and Winnicott. She had organised the defence of Melanie Klein, her closest friend. However, 1945 was a tragic year for her. Her husband, Evelyn Riviere had died of cancer of the liver and stomach. His death brought back painful memories of the death of her father, Hugh Verrall, who had died in 1909. This earlier death plunged Riviere into a depression which, in the longer run, brought her to psychoanalysis. Isaacs must have intended this task as a therapeutic one for Riviere. However, the psychoanalytic world was in a sense mourning the death of its own father, Sigmund Freud, who had died in freedom in England, in 1939. He and Evelyn Riviere were both buried in Golders Green Cemetery. Riviere’s article, “The bereaved wife” (Riviere, 1945) represents in a rather extreme way her mixture of harshness and sympathy, and her capacity to explain theoretical matters clearly. Her sympathy for the bereaved wife is clear: “The catastrophe which the loss of her husband means to a woman, as we know, causes a wound which in itself can only be healed by time” (Hughes, 1991, p. 215). Having recently written a biography of Riviere (Bower, 2019), it seems to me that this “educational” piece of writing tracks backwards and forwards between Riviere’s childhood and her recent bereavement as an adult and a mother “… the new experience is not met unbiased, but is coloured by uncon- scious and forgotten memories of earlier situations.” (Hughes, 1991, p. 215). Couple and Family Psychoanalysis 9(1) 73–80 (2019) 7-Occasional Reviews_CAFP_9.qxp 15/02/2019 10:05 Page 74 74 OCCASIONAL REVIEWS When Joan Riviere’s father was dying, she was not able to stay in the room with him. She went back to London and threw herself into visits to the theatre. Evelyn Riviere’s death certificate shows once again Joan could not stay with him. It was her sister, Molly, who was with Evelyn when he died. Evelyn was very much the inheritor of Joan’s father. They both worked in the legal world and both were emotionally fragile people who evaded difficult situations. Evelyn took flight to his parents’ house whenever things were difficult and particularly if he was ill. Hugh Verrall, Joan’s father, took flight from Joan when she was born and went on holiday with a friend. This left Joan’s mother struggling on her own, and eventually she took refuge with her own family. With an element of drawing room comedy, Riviere describes how different women cope without a man in their lives. Some women want children, but have not enjoyed having a husband. “In such cases, widowhood is exactly suited to them, more especially if it brings with it a pension … Women vary in the degree to which they are first and foremost wives and secondly mothers, or vice versa” (Hughes, 1991, p. 218). More poignantly Riviere describes the envy men and women can feel for each other. This can con- tribute to the depression a woman might feel after a husband’s death. In a way which feels more modern, Riviere describes how helpful it can be for a woman to have a satisfying job to return to. Children may become particularly important to a mother after a bereavement. “They will represent to her ‘goodness’ which is still partly herself and partly the father and which she still possesses … Her love towards them will keep alive her belief in herself …” (Hughes, 1991, p. 217). However, Riviere does not want to tidy away the sufferings of mourning. “The sorrows of love are actually the mainspring of so much that is valuable and productive, whether in the humdrum or the thrilling sides of life …” (Hughes, 1991, p. 222). Joan, like her own mother, found it intensely difficult to be a parent. In fact, she had only one child whom she could barely cope with. However, her long and intimate friendship with Melanie Klein had sensitised her to the feelings of other peoples’ children. “Children should have time allowed them to grieve and must feel they have permission to be sad” (Hughes, 1991, p. 222). Unlike some psychoanalysts, Joan was acutely conscious of family dynamics. Some mothers tend … to use their children like actors in a play they are producing and allot of them roles, each of which corresponds to some side of the mother’s feelings which she herself is unaware of, or cannot express. (Hughes, 1991, p. 223) There was little chance of Joan influencing her daughter, Diana, who was an Oxford graduate working as a journalist. The Christmas after Evelyn’s death, Diana left Joan on her own. She probably went to her aunt Molly, whom she felt had been more of a mother to her. However, Joan did have a symbolic daughter, her supervisee Hanna Poznanska (soon-to-be Segal). Joan was aware that Segal’s mother had just died and her father had returned to Paris. In fact, Segal was not alone as her fiancé was staying with her. They joined Joan for Christmas and a close relationship developed between the three of 7-Occasional Reviews_CAFP_9.qxp 15/02/2019 10:05 Page 75 OCCASIONAL REVIEWS 75 them, and this sustained Riviere through a period of further losses. In 1947, Anna Verrall, Joan’s mother, died. There are no direct references by Joan to this, but, as we will see, she used her writing as a therapeutic task. In 1948, Susan Isaacs died of breast cancer and Joan visited while she was dying. I think she had managed to overcome her horror of death. With her mind characteristically on her work, Isaacs reproached Joan for her delay in bringing out the book they had collaborated on, Developments in Psychoanalysis, which Joan was editing. This book contained papers by four friends and colleagues, Joan Riviere, Susan Isaacs, Melanie Klein, and Paula Heimann. These papers were extraordinarily prescient. Heimann’s paper on the death instinct gives a convincing explanation of mass murders followed by a suicide. Klein’s paper “Notes on some schizoid mechanisms” formed the basis of the psychoanalysis of psychotic patients. Developments in Psychoanalysis came out in 1952 (Riviere, 1952). Most of its papers cover the first months or years of life. This interest in babies was in keeping with the newly-developed Welfare State. In her introduction to the book, Joan refers to the belief by psychologists and others that the baby has no psychical processes until he or she expresses themselves in a form that is familiar to adults. Riviere says: There have always been people, nonetheless make precisely the opposite assumption, they are not scientists I refer of course particularly to those gifted intuitive mothers … you have always taken for granted that a baby does feel and think and know and react emotionally to what happens to them. (Riviere, 1952, p. 36) Although Joan was wanting to highlight the importance of Klein’s work, I think she also wanted to acknowledge the emotional significance of Klein’s friendship with her. Although now you would not consider a ten year analysis unusual, the early psychoanalysts had very little by comparison. After a major depressive breakdown, Riviere had a disastrous first analysis with Ernest Jones, followed by six months with Sigmund Freud, which ended in 1925. In 1926, Klein came to live permanently in England. Although Freud remains important to Joan, I suggest that a close personal friendship with Klein was a factor in preventing her breaking down again after her losses in the 1940s. In the late 1930s, Klein and Joan collaborated in a series of public lectures. Characteristically, Joan spoke about hate, greed, and aggression. Klein had the more positive topic, love, guilt, and reparation. At one point she touches on the issue of friendship between women, and she is almost certainly talking about herself and Joan: Let us take as an instance a friendship between two women who are not too dependent on each other. Protectiveness and helpfulness may still be needed, at times by the one, at times by the other … elements of early situations are expressed in adult ways. Protection, help and advice were first afforded to us by our mothers … but the wish to receive them when difficult and painful situations arise will be with us until we die.

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