Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia")

Very Bad Wizards

Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro

Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2025

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David and Tamler transfer their libidinal energy to Freud's 1917 article "Mourning and Melancholia," in which he tries to understand what's going on with depression, attempts to distinguish it from normal grief, and arrives at some ideas that laid the groundwork for his later theory of normal human development. Plus, another blind ranking segment--this time Tamler gives David a list of rappers to rank blindly. Finally, in between segments we make an announcement about the topic of our next bonus series (it's gonna be epic).

Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia" [wikipedia.org]

Link to PDF [sas.upenn.edu]

The Odyssey (translated by Emily Wilson) [amazon.com affiliate link]

Transcript

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0:00.0	Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Vizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics.
0:09.4	Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.
0:17.1	This episode is dedicated to Ryan Lake, philosopher, friend of ours, and all-around, good dude.
0:23.8	You left us too soon, man.
0:29.2	The great end boss has spoken.
0:33.6	Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
0:40.3	Yeah. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Who are you?
0:43.3	Who are you?
0:44.3	I'm a very bad man.
0:47.3	I'm a very good man.
0:49.3	Good man.
0:51.3	They think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have.
0:57.0	May no attention tonight, man.
1:00.0	Anybody can have a brain?
1:05.0	You're a very bad man.
1:09.0	I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard. I'm a very good man.
1:11.3	Just a very bad wizard.
1:14.2	Welcome to Very Bad Wizards.
1:15.8	I'm Tamler Summers from the University of Houston.
1:18.4	Dave, Taylor Swift's new album has drawn a lot of ire from Taylor's biggest fans.
1:24.2	Among them, my daughter, the assistant editor, who tragically will not be
1:28.8	helping out on this episode. Not a fan, though, and angry at it. Yeah. Well, as very bad
	...

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