Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T16:30:45.024Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Narratives of grief and their potential for transformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2006

JOAN BERZOFF
JOAN BERZOFF
Affiliation:
End-of-Life Care Certificate Program, Smith College SSW, Lilly Hall, Northampton, Massachusetts
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines narratives of grief and loss and how, under the best of circumstances, they may lead to transformation and growth, even contributing to the greater social good. Using psychodynamic and narrative theories, and examples drawn from mourners who have used their grief in powerful and political ways, I make the case that even grief that has been highly appropriated and contested, as in the case of Terri Schiavo, may ultimately serve important functions. Grief may mobilize mourners by helping them to turn passivity into activity. Grief may mobilize higher-level defenses such as altruism. Grief and loss may lead to a mourner's desire to do for others what was not done for him or her. A necessary part of turning grief into social action is the creation of a coherent grief narrative—first personal and then political. This coherent narrative can be developed using clinical interventions as well. Hence I discuss the clinical implications of helping those who are grieving to create coherent narratives out of shattered assumptions in a process of personal and social change.

Keywords

GriefCoherent narrativeTransformationAltruismPolitical and social action
Type
Research Article
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , June 2006 , pp. 121 - 127
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ainsworth, M.E., Waters, W., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Arnst, C. (2005). Nancy G. Brinker: Promise keeper (Voices of innovation). Business Week, October 17, 24.
Arons, S. (2004). Current legal issues in end-of-life care. In Living with Dying: A Handbook for End of Life Care Practitioners, Berzoff, J. & Silverman, P. (eds.), New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 730–760.
Aronson, L. (2004). Social work consultation to mental health workers serving children and families affected by disasters. In Living with Dying: A Handbook for End of Life Care Practitioners, Berzoff, J. & Silverman, P. (eds.), pp. 661–675. New York: Columbia University Press.
Baker, J.E. (2001). Mourning and the transformation of object relationships. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 18, 55–73.Google Scholar
Bibring, E. (1952). Mechanisms of depression. In Affective Disorders, Greenacre, P. (ed.), pp. 1–13. New York: International Universities Press.
Biehl, L. & Biehl, P. (1998). The story of Linda and Peter Biehl: Private loss and public forgiveness. Reflections, 3, ll–22.Google Scholar
Bowers, C. (2005). The conservative money matrix is funding Schiavo's parents. Available at: http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/3/22/135029/283.
Bowlby, J. (1961). Childhood mourning and its implications for psychiatry. American Journal of Psychiatry, 118, 481–491.Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1963). Pathological mourning and childhood mourning. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 11, 500–541.Google Scholar
CBS47. (2005). New Roman Catholic University establishes Schiavo scholarship. Available at: http://www.cbs47.com/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=3645D3C3-47C0-4A2D-8A35-422A1AF0834C.
Didion, J. (2005). The Year of Magical Thinking. New York: AA Knopf, pp. 5–6.
Drake, S. (2005). Disabled are fearful: Who will be next? Los Angeles Times, October 29, pp. 18–20.
Eisenberg, J.B. (2005). Using Terri: The Religious Right's Conspiracy to Take Away Our Rights. San Francisco: Harper.
Freud, S. (1917). Mourning and melancholia. In Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 14, pp. 243–258. London: Hogarth Press.
Freud, S. (1936). The ego and the id. Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 19, pp. 12–66. London: Hogarth Press.
Harvey, J., Carlson, T., Huff, M., et al. (1996). Embracing Their Memory: Loss and the Social Psychology of Story Telling. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Itin, C., McFeaters, S., & Taylor-Brown, S. (2004). The Family Unity Program for HIV affected families: Creating a family centered and community building context for interventions. In Living with Dying: A Handbook for End of Life Care Practitioners, Berzoff, J. & Silverman, P. (eds.), pp. 642–661. New York: Columbia University Press.
Jacobs, S.C., Mazure, C., & Prigerson, H. (2000). Diagnostic criteria for traumatic grief. Death Studies, 24, 147–175.Google Scholar
Jeserich, M. (2005). Disability rights groups support keeping Terri Schiavo alive. Available at: http://www.fsrn.org/news/20050321_news.html.
Klein, M. (1940). Mourning and its relation to manic-depressive states. In Contributions to Psychoanalysis, 1921–1945 Sutherland, J.D. (ed.), vol. 34, pp. 311–338. London: Hogarth Press.
Lindemann, E. (1944). Symptomatogy and the management of acute grief. American Journal of Psychiatry, 101, 141–148.Google Scholar
Loewald, H. (1962). Internalization, separation, mourning and the superego. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 31, 453–504.Google Scholar
Middleton, W.B., Raphael, N., Martinek, N., et al. (1993). Pathological grief reactions. In Handbook of Grief and Bereavement: Theory, Research, and Intervention, Stroebe, M., Stroebe, W.E. & Hanson, H. (eds.), pp. 62–77. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Neimeyer, R. (1997). Meaning reconstruction and the experience of chronic loss. In Living with Grief: When Illness Is Prolonged, Doka, K.J. & Davidson, J. (eds.), pp. 159–176. Washington, DC: Taylor and Francis.
Neimeyer, R. (2001). Meaning Reconstruction and the Experience of Loss. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Rizzo, A. (2005). Vatican calls for keeping Schiavo alive. Available at: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=600355.
Silverman, P. (1986). Widow to Widow. New York: Springer.
Silverman, P. (1988). In search of new selves: Accommodating to widowhood. In Families in Transition: Primary Prevention Programs that Work, Bond, L.A. & Wagner, B.M. (eds.), pp. 200–220). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Silverman, P. (2004). Bereavement: A time of transition and changing relationships. In Living with Dying: A Handbook for End of Life Care Practitioners, Berzoff, J. & Silverman, P. (eds.), pp. 226–242. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sutton, A. & Leichty, D. (2004). Clinical practice with groups at the end of life. In Living with Dying: A Handbook for End of Life Care Practitioners, Berzoff, J. & Silverman, P. (eds.), pp. 508–534. New York: Columbia University Press.
The Terri Shindler-Schiavo Foundation. (2005). Available at: http://www.terrisfight.org/about.html (Accessed September 27, 2005).
Vaillant, G. (1979). Adaptation to Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Volkan, V.D. (1981). Linking Objects and Linking Phenomena. New York: International Universities Press.
Weisman, A. (1974). The Realization of Death: A Guide for the Psychological Autopsy. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Press, p. 6.