HARMING AND BENEFITING THE DEAD

The traditional view of grief resolution requires the bereaved person to disengage from the deceased. This is often expressed as a necessary ''letting go'' of the past for the survivor to be free to continue her or his life and form new relationships. Contemporary grief theory, in contrast, recognizes that healthy grieving involves maintaining bonds with the deceased. The relationship between the bereaved person and the person who has died, although transformed, is ongoing. This article takes as its focus one aspect of the continuing relationship between the living and the dead. It begins with the noncontroversial claim that some actions that involve the dead are wrong from an ethical perspective. What is controversial is the explanation of the wrongness of these actions. It is argued that the dead can be harmed by having their interests thwarted and, conversely, they can be benefited by having their interests promoted. Posthumous harm and benefit are possible because people who are now dead possessed interests prior to death that continue to exert a claim after death.     

HARMING AND BENEFITING THE DEAD

The traditional view of grief resolution requires the bereaved person to disengage from the deceased. This is often expressed as a necessary 'letting go' of the past for the survivor to be free to continue her or his life and form new relationships. Contemporary grief theory, in contrast, recognizes that healthy grieving involves maintaining bonds with the deceased. The relationship between the bereaved person and the person who has died, although transformed, is ongoing. This article takes as its focus one aspect of the continuing relationship between the living and the dead. It begins with the noncontroversial claim that some actions that involve the dead are wrong from an ethical perspective. What is controversial is the explanation of the wrongness of these actions. It is argued that the dead can be harmed by having their interests thwarted and, conversely, they can be benefited by having their interests promoted. Posthumous harm and benefit are possible because people who are now dead possessed interests prior to death that continue to exert a claim after death.     

The transformation of the meaning of death in complicated grief group therapy for survivors of suicide: A treatment process analysis using the meaning of loss codebook

We examined the therapeutic process of grief change in survivors of suicide participating in complicated grief group therapy (CGGT) using the meaning of loss codebook (MLC). Complicated grief group therapy is a multimodal group psychotherapy designed to restore normal grieving in persons with complicated grief. Using video data, we evaluated transition points in psychotherapy associated with meaning reconstruction: retelling the narrative of the death, having an imaginal conversation with the deceased, and memory integration. The MLC codes captured most of the voiced statements of participants, provided a valuable lens for articulating the therapeutic process, and affirmed that CGGT facilitated effective grief.     

Constructing the dead: Retrospective sensemaking in eulogies

Eulogies serve a sensemaking function of identity construction—both for the deceased and for the survivors. This work examines the communicative construction of identity in eulogies and shows how eulogia discourse affirms and reconstructs our relational identity through communication. The article extends scholarship on eulogies by using relational communication theories to investigate how eulogic discourse functions as identity construction, considering eulogies of ordinary people, and exploring the gendered nature of eulogies. We discuss how eulogies are specific ritualized forms of communication in which the bereaved focus on self-identity as they articulate their experience of grief.     

Relationship with the deceased as facilitator of posttraumatic growth among suicide-loss survivors

This study aimed to investigate the role of ongoing relationships with the deceased in facilitating posttraumatic growth among suicide-loss survivors. The sample comprised 58 suicide-loss survivors, 48 sudden-death, and 53 natural-death bereaved individuals, who completed questionnaires assessing the two-track model of bereavement, grief, and growth-related characteristics. Suicide-loss survivors reported lower levels of positive relationships with the deceased than did the other groups. An interaction was found between relational-active grieving and type of death in predicting posttraumatic growth. The study concluded that intense grief along with preoccupation with the deceased lessened positive personal transformation, especially among those struggling with a loved one’s suicide.     

Restorative Retelling for Violent Loss: An Open Clinical Trial

Those impacted by the loss of a loved one to violent death (i.e., homicide, suicide, or accident) may be at risk for posttraumatic stress, depression, and prolonged grief. Restorative retelling (RR) is a structured group intervention developed to improve coping skills, integrate commemoration of the deceased, and approach traumatic memories. This article provides initial evidence for the use of RR in reducing trauma, depression, and prolonged grief symptoms in a records review open trial of 51 violent loss survivors at a community counseling clinic. Results suggested that RR was well tolerated with a significant decrease in symptoms.     

The aging of grief in Israel: a perspective of bereaved parents

This article focuses on long - term grief of older bereaved parents within the context of the Israeli society. The themes that emerged in a group discussion with 29 elderly bereaved parents whose sons were killed during military service support previous findings that the passage of time has no diminishing effect on parents' grief or on relinquishing attachment to the deceased. Aging appears to increase internalized involvement with the long - lost child, fears of fading memories, and the need to eternalize the deceased. In reviewing the past, parents reevaluate their coping with the loss and their relationship with the surviving children. The strong attachment seems to continue in external and inner representations of the lost child. In Israel, this preoccupation is enhanced due to society's attitude to dead soldiers, creating thereby an interface between society and bereaved families. The authors conclude that grief is a central theme in aging parents, and the term "aging of grief" is suggested to describe the course that grief and its many aspects may take with the passage of time.     

The deceased child in the psychic and social worlds of bereaved parents during the resolution of grief

A core dynamic by which grief is resolved by parents in Bereaved Parents, a selfhelp group, is a series of transformations of the inner representation of the dead child in the parent's inner world and in the parent's social world. As the reality of the child's death as well as the reality of the parent's continuing bond with the child are made part of the socially shared reality, the inner representation of the child can be transformed in the parent's psychic life. The end of grief is not severing the bond with the dead child, but integrating the child into the parent's life in a different way than when the child was alive. This article traces the course of the inner representation of the child in the parent's inner life and social world as the parent progresses through Bereaved Parents. It concludes with some comments on the differences that should be maintained between scholarly and popular understandings of phenomena in the continuing bonds survivors maintain with the dead.     

College and the grieving student: A mixed-methods analysis

The current mixed-methods study examines how college students negotiate the grief process with the competing demands of college. Data were collected from 950 students at a regional comprehensive university and a research intensive institution. Quantitative findings revealed closeness to the deceased as a key positive predictor of mental health and academic difficulties and positive associations between changes in peer relationships and mental health difficulties. Qualitative findings showed that closeness to the deceased was associated with a greater sense of purpose in the college experience and findings suggested that institutions and their faculty encourage and exhibit more sensitivity about grief issues.     

Utilizing grief counseling principles to assist a woman whose husband died of AIDS

This case study report utilized the grief counseling principles proposed by Worden to elucidate the grief responses of a woman whose husband died of AIDS. It also described the nursing care provided by staff nurses to assist the woman to get through the period of grief by achieving "the four goals of grief". Fifteen in-depth interviews were performed and field notes were collected. As the study reports, the grief responses of the wife were: affective expressions, including grief, anger, guilt, self blame, anxiety, loneliness, fatigue, helplessness, and shock; physical expressions, including insomnia, palpitations, and chest tightness; cognitive expressions, including disbelief, confusion, a sense that the loved one is still alive; and behavioral expressions, including insomnia, poor appetite, social withdrawal, avoidance of mentioning the deceased, searching, sighing and sobbing. After her husband had been deceased for six months, the wife completed the phases of 1) acceptance of loss, 2) experiencing grief and pain, 3) adapting to a new environment without the deceased, and 4) redirecting the positive feelings towards the deceased in building a brighter future. This case report will help clinical nurses to understand how to assist families with HIV/AIDS through proper grief counseling, and thus how to guide them through grief.     

Narratives of grieving African-Americans about racism in the lives of deceased family members

As part of a comprehensive interview study on African-American grief, the authors explored how racism is incorporated into narratives about a deceased family member. To the extent that experiences of racism are pervasive in African-American life and to the extent that narratives about a person who has died generally account for the life experiences, achievements, character, and challenges faced by the deceased, the authors expected narratives about a deceased African-American to deal with the person's encounters with racism. In fact, most of the 26 African-Americans who were interviewed spoke about racism in the life of the deceased. Many talked about racism blocking the deceased from getting ahead occupationally and in other ways and about how the deceased resisted or stood up to racism. Some people spoke about the ways the deceased taught them to deal with racism. The narratives that indicated that the deceased had rarely or ever talked about racism still made clear that the deceased lived in a racist world but chose not to bring racism into family conversation. The findings suggest that a view of African-American grieving that is insensitive to racism in African-American experience may lead to unhelpful grief support or counseling.     

Paying your respects: Transgender women and detransitioning after death

Abstract

This paper asks how do the deaths and the postmortem detransitioning (the verbal, visual, and material rejection of a person’s gender identity) of transgender women impact trans activism? After analyzing the case studies of Jennifer Gable and Leelah Alcorn, I outline how the contentious memorialization of transgender women and the disenfranchized grief of survivors influence trans activism. I conclude that activism is characterized by respecting the wishes of the deceased, by preventing the violence which transgender women experience, by advocating for trans elder care, by educating about end-of-life issues, and by lobbying for laws that protect transgender men and women after death.     

Grief consolation in eulogy rhetoric: an integrative framework

In an ever more deadly and uncertain world, rhetoric honoring the deceased is still examined as though that was its primary, if not only, function. Some critics of eulogia also identify the consolation of survivors but rarely define it precisely or analyze its rhetorical execution. This article introduces a framework for the critical analysis and production of eulogia that draws from comforting mechanisms recognized in the interpersonal communication, social psychology, and grief therapy literatures. Self-disclosure, problem-focused coping, positive reappraisal, and the affirmation and continuation of relationships with the deceased are shown to inform criticism of five contemporary eulogies. Challenges inherent in the invention and appreciation of eulogy rhetoric are thus illuminated and addressed.     

Content Analysis of Free-Response Narratives to Personal Meanings of Death among Chinese Children and Adolescents

ABSTRACT

As part of a comprehensive interview study on African-American grief, the authors explored how racism is incorporated into narratives about a deceased family member. To the extent that experiences of racism are pervasive in African-American life and to the extent that narratives about a person who has died generally account for the life experiences, achievements, character, and challenges faced by the deceased, the authors expected narratives about a deceased African-American to deal with the person's encounters with racism. In fact, most of the 26 African-Americans who were interviewed spoke about racism in the life of the deceased. Many talked about racism blocking the deceased from getting ahead occupationally and in other ways and about how the deceased resisted or stood up to racism. Some people spoke about the ways the deceased taught them to deal with racism. The narratives that indicated that the deceased had rarely or ever talked about racism still made clear that the deceased lived in a racist world but chose not to bring racism into family conversation. The findings suggest that a view of African-American grieving that is insensitive to racism in African-American experience may lead to unhelpful grief support or counseling.     

Grief as a Social Emotion: Theoretical Perspectives

The article explores a sociological perspective on grief as a social emotion. Focusing on the social bond with the deceased, the self-concept of the survivor or the power of feeling rules, general sociological theories of emotions (symbolic interactionism, structural theory, behavioral theory) have the potential to deepen the understanding of grief as a social emotion. The article concludes by presenting a cognitive-structural model of grief that integrates the different theoretical elements.     

Grief reactions among suicide survivors: An exploratory comparison of relationships

Little research has focused upon those who survive the suicide death of a family member. Among the existing research, survivors representing only one interpersonal relationship class to the deceased (e.g., widows or parents) are usually studied or no differentiation is made with respect to this factor. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate some of the assumptions frequently made regarding differences among suicide survivors as a result of their kinship relation to the deceased. Questionnaires were sent to a convenience sample of survivors who had contacted the Minneapolis Suicide Survivors Grief Group. Responses from 141 individuals who survived the suicide death of a child (N = 56), spouse (N = 24), parent (N = 24), or sibling (N = 37) were studied. Few kinship group differences were observed for feelings of guilt or anger, the severity of seeing the death scene in one's mind, personal symptoms following the suicide, or aspects of social stigma or shame. When kinship group differences were observed they were often contrary to assumptions made, particularly regarding parents as survivors of offspring suicides. It is concluded, however, that, with few exceptions, suicide survivors variously related to the deceased have similar grief experiences, and pathology is not characteristic among any kinship group, and that most expectations of differences are not supported.     

Investigating risk for grief severity: Attachment to the deceased and relationship quality

Abstract

Previous research examining the interrelationship between attachment, relationship quality, and bereavement outcomes suffers from a lack of precision and sophistication in the measurement of the core constructs of interest. The present study adapted an existing measure of attachment and employed a novel instrument of relationship quality to examine specific attachment to and relationship quality with the deceased as contributors to grief symptom severity. A sample of 385 bereaved college students completed measures retrospectively assessing relationship quality, attachment to the deceased, and grief symptomatology. Findings indicate that specific attachment to the deceased differs significantly from global attachment style and that relationship quality and attachment anxiety and avoidance interact in significant ways to predict the risk of grief severity. Specifically, individuals with a Preoccupied attachment style (high anxiety, low avoidance) are most at risk for adverse grief reactions in the context of high relationship closeness and conflict. This study is limited by an over-representation of extended family loss, which may have unique implications for attachment and relationship quality. Grief therapists should consider the implications of attachment and relationship quality with the deceased in the selection of relationship-enhancing or relational problem-solving interventions.     

Lost children, living memories: the role of photographs in processes of grief and adjustment among bereaved parent

Drawing on recent developments in the conceptualization of grief (Klass, Silverman, and Nickman, 1996; Walter, 1996) that note the importance of talking about lost loved ones as part of maintaining a "continuing bond" between the living and the dead, this article considers the role of photographs in parents' adjustment to life without their child and in their negotiation of a more "comfortable"relationship with the deceased. The contributions that photographs and other memorabilia make to parents' opportunities to remember their children's lives (as opposed to their deaths), to facilitating conversations and reminiscences about their living relationships, and to parents' ability to introduce "lost" children to people who didn't know them, are explored using examples drawn from a series of case studies of bereaved parents. Photographs and other artifacts arising from their children's living can be perceived as the illustrations of a developing story in which previous and present relationships may be represented and interrogated for meaning. It is argued that visual representations of children's lives, no matter how brief, are a crucial feature of the process of coming to terms with both the fact of the loss and the reality of the life that has been lived.     

The monkey's paw: The role of inheritance in the resolution of grief

Despite the common occurrence of the loss of a parent in adulthood, most research has either focused on the child's loss of a parent or parental loss of an adult child. Yet research has reported that the death of a parent is a stressful loss to adults. However, little research explores circumstances that might complicate loss.

This research considers the role of inheritance in the resolution of grief. It was found that inheritance reflects, and perhaps intensifies, existing problems and conflicts between parents and siblings. When these prior issues are not problematic, inheritances leave a legacy that validates the life of the deceased and affirms relationships with survivors. The study also found a “settlement reaction” similar to anniversary reactions, suggesting that legal events influence the cycle of grief.     

Let Me Hear of Your Mercy in the Mourning: Forgiveness,Grief, and Continuing Bonds

Clarity about the utility of continuing bonds (CB) continues to be evasive in the research. In 2 different correlational studies, the authors explored the relationship between CB and 2 other variables: 1 representing mental health (forgiveness of the deceased) and the other representing psychological distress (prolonged grief). Although researchers have addressed the latter relationship in the literature, assessing the relationship between CB and forgiveness has not been undertaken. Results suggest that forgiveness in general, and affective aspects of forgiveness in particular, predict psychological forms of CB. Results related to grief depended on how CB was assessed. These findings provide evidence of the relative health of certain types of relationship with deceased persons and also suggest that forgiveness interventions may be a way of promoting such healthy bonds.