Viewed through the psychoanalytic lens of mourning, we saw in the previous chapter that the movement of consciousness is characterised by a process of introjection. Consciousness is forced at each stage to remove its libidinal investments from an object and reattach them to a new object. Insofar as this process progresses, that is, insofar as in each case a new cathexis is formed, consciousness is introjecting its lost object. At each stage the loss is overcome and new attachments are made. This is the process of mourning.

In this chapter we will see how this process develops and the Phenomenology moves from examining abstract consciousness to communities in history. I will argue that mourning still characterises this movement, but that the ways in which the lost object is introjected changes depending on the community within which the death occurs. For the Phenomenology to be successful, Hegel must show how neither death nor others are external to the movement of consciousness. Both must be introjected into the movement of consciousness so that all of its negations are contained within it. We examined the initial attempts of consciousness to effect this type of introjection in the struggle for recognition and the master/servant dialectic. The struggle for recognition was unsuccessful in converting death into a spiritual negation.