Malik, Death, and Words

In this pedagogical monograph, Mireille Perbal-Laffitte recounts how a child, facing his mother’s suicide and the paralyzing silence of those around him, gradually develops severe regressive symptoms from the refusal to confront grief. Through the institutions of a cooperative institutional classroom—and especially through the speech and attentive listening of the group and the teacher—he slowly regains the courage to accept death, and thus the desire to live, grow, and learn again.