The fatal myth of death in the family.

The author hypothesizes that the observed pathogenic effects on a child of the death of a parent are the result of the family's culture-bound inability to integrate death as a natural part of the process of living. The family tries to deal with death by the avoidance mechanisms of myth and family mystification; it is this process which is pathogenic rather than the experience with death itself. To illustrate his thesis he presents the case history of a man who was fatally affected by the family myth and mystification process.