Expression Of Grief Research Articles

And Then the Dog Died

ABSTRACT Childhood grief and mourning of family and friends may have immediate and long-lasting consequences including depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, behavioral disturbances, and school underachievement. Childhood pet bereavement is no less important, because the pet is often considered a member of the family by the child. However, society does not always acknowledge the significance of pet bereavement, which can result in unresolved grief. This article, a case analysis with literature review, addresses childhood pet bereavement in the context of multiple prior losses (K. R. Kaufman & N. D. Kaufman, 2005). This case mirrors both old and new findings in grief research and therapy: (a) beneficial response to emotional expression of grief in context of search for meaning; (b) beneficial response to cognitive approach toward grief with ability to prevent development of complicated grief even in the face of multiple losses; (c) beneficial effects associated with supportive family and with positive self-concept; (d) intensity of grief magnified by the child's degree of attachment to the pet, the suddenness of the pet's death, the multiple prior losses, and the role of the pet in the child's life; and (e) resiliency. This case further emphasizes the need for parents not to trivialize death of pets, to appreciate the role pets have in children's lives, and to assist the child in multiple approaches toward expression (be it verbal, written, or artistic). Finally, this case reinforces the ability of the child to assist in family bereavement and to serve as teacher.

Evidence for Healing Interventions With Perinatal Bereavement

The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of perinatal grief and evidence-based healing interventions for it. The loss of a pregnancy or death of an infant causes profound grief, yet society has long minimized or ignored this grief, which is among the most painful of bereavement experiences. Throughout the last century, research on grief and the special needs of bereaved parents has changed the context of professional intervention from protective to supportive. The central focus of bereavement interventions is to assist families in healing by helping them make meaning of their losses. The use of symbols, spirituality, and rituals has been shown to help bring meaning. Research has shown that memories are key to healing, and that gender, age, and relationships bring different grief expressions and experiences. While children's understanding of loss and grief differs with developmental age, they should also be given the opportunity to participate in grief rituals and practices. Professionals who care for bereaved parents have a unique opportunity to offer support by validating their grief, facilitating rituals, providing mementos, and letting the bereaved tell their stories. While no intervention can bring back their beloved children, appropriate intervention can promote healing.

(review)

MLRy 100.3, 2005 821 L'Annee balzacienne 2003: 'Le Medecin de campagne'. By the Groupe d'Etudes Balzaciennes. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 2004. 421 pp. ?43. ISBN 2-13-053343-4. The first,and most substantial, part of L'Annee balzacienne 2003 is devoted to new perspectives on Le Medecin de campagne, a novel that Balzac hoped would secure him a place 'a la tete des intelligences de l'Europe' (letter of 20 July 1832, in Honore de Balzac, Correspondance, ed. by Roger Pierrot, 5 vols (Paris: Garnier, 1960-69), 11(1962), 62). Published in 1833, the firstof Balzac's Scenes de la vie de campagne sees the eponymous Doctor Benassis retreat to the mountains of Dauphine, where he breathes new social and economic life into an impoverished village. Together with Le Cure de village (1841), Le Medecin de campagne has long been accepted as a utopian vision of rural reform. While not neglecting this interpretation, the authors of the eight essays in this section revisit the text using a welcome variety of approaches. With refreshing clarity, Michael Tilby analyses the self-reflexive nature of a novel he terms 'une veritable machine a fabriquer des contes' (p. 14), in which the popular tales recounted by the Napoleonic veteran, Goguelat, are but one type of embedded narrative. Other contributors focus on the theme of violence. Owen Heathcote demonstrates that, through the intervention of metonymy and metaphor, suffering is shown to blight the lives of the novel's characters, from the brokenhearted Benassis to the battle-weary Genestas, in the process acquiring '[une] valeur benigne et meme positive' (p. 26). Alex Lascar takes further critical pleasure in the pain of the fictional protagonists with a discussion of mourning rituals, and the role of these public expressions of grief within Benassis's programme. Of the remaining essays in this opening section, arguably the most engaging is by Mireille Labouret, who examines the reasons why Balzac lauded Le Medecin de campagne as 'LTmitation de Jesus-Christ poetisee' (letter at the end of January 1833, in Honore de Balzac, Lettres a Madame Hanska, 2 vols (Paris: Laffont, Bouquins, 1990), 1, 22), yet failed to mention this religious manual in the novel itself. The second half of the volume moves into other corners of the Balzacian universe through a series of genetic and thematic studies. In a provocative essay, Roland Chollet journeys across the 'Touraine inventee' (p. 165) of Stenie, beginning with the question of why the house in which Balzac was born is described nowhere in his vast literary output. In an important work of synthesis, Frederic Pollaud-Dulian outlines Balzac's attempts to defend his intellectual property against piracy, a struggle more enduring than the novelist's short-lived presidency of the Societe des Gens de Lettres, from August 1839 to January 1840, might otherwise lead us to believe. The remaining essays include Arlette Michel on the public debate between Balzac and Hippolyte Castille in 1846, on the (im)morality of La Comedie humaine, and Joost Mertens on Adrien Thilorier (1790-1844), a scientist who pioneered techniques in the pressurization of gas, and who stands as a possible model for Balthazar Claes, the tormented alchemist of La Recherche de I'absolu. In the back ofthe volume is a text-by-text bibliography, covering work carried out in the field of Balzac studies in 2001, as well as a comprehensive guide to Balzac scholarship, both recently completed and still in progress, outside France. The high standard of both content and presentation makes this volume an indispensable resource for specialists, and a worthy addition to university libraries. University of Bristol Andrew Watts ...

The ethics of mourning: grief and responsibility in elegiac literature

The Ethics of Mourning dramatically shifts the critical discussion of the lyric elegy from psychological economy to ethical responsibility. Beginning from a reevaluation of famously inconsolable mourners such as Niobe and Hamlet, R. Clifton Spargo discerns the tendency of all grief to depend at least temporarily upon the refusal of consolation. By disrupting the traditional social and psychological functions of grief, resistant mourners transform mourning into a profoundly ethical act. Spargo finds such examples of ethical mourning in opposition to socially acceptable expressions of grief throughout the English and American elegiac tradition. Drawing on the work of Paul Ricoeur, Bernard Williams, and Emmanuel Levinas, his book explores the ethical dimensions of anti-consolatory grief through astute readings of a wide range of texts-including treatments of Hamlet, Milton, and Renaissance elegists, extended readings of Dickinson, Shelley, and Hardy, and final chapters on American Holocaust elegies by Sylvia Plath and Randall Jarrell. Spargo argues that, to the extent that elegies are melancholic, to the extent that they resist the history of consolation and the strategies of commemoration implicit in elegiac conventions, they make an extraordinary ethical demand on us, asking that we remain in relationship to the other, even past the point of all usefulness. In the wake of the atrocities of the twentieth century, particularly the Holocaust, Spargo finds the crisis in the project of commemoration to be an event already inscribed with ethical meaning. He argues for the particular capacity of literature to undertake an imaginative risk on behalf of another that seems the very ground of ethics itself.

The Invention of Mourning in Post-Apartheid Literature

One of the chief challenges facing post-apartheid writers has been the need to produce literature capable of working through the losses of the apartheid era. While the resistance struggle instrumentalised literary production and politicised funerals, the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided a forum for the expression of personal loss but also tended to subsume individual testimonies within hegemonic national narratives. With particular reference to work by Zakes Mda, John Kani, JM Coetzee and Ingrid de Kok, this paper argues that postapartheid literature invents new forms of both mourning and community, offering alternative times and spaces for the expression of grief.

A New Word on 'The Brothers Karamazov' by Robert Louis s> Jackson (review)

128 SEER, 83, I, 2005 Reticence on the part of Tolstoi is equally tantalizing. A large number of references to Dostoevskii appears in the index of names, but hardly any of them fall within letters penned by Tolstoi: despite frequent mentions of the writer and his works by Strakhov,Tolstoi is rarely drawn to comment. The notable exceptions are, of course, Tolstoi's expressionof grief at the death of Dostoevskii, and his measured response to Strakhov'spersonal attack upon his deceased collaboratorand erstwhilefriend. These well-known statements notwithstanding,it is intriguingto see that Tolstoi chose to say so little to his most valued correspondentabout Dostoevskii, when it might have produced an interestingperspectiveon many of the issuesdebated between them. This is where the value lies in being able to see both halves of the correspondence, because it is clear that the unwillingness to discuss Dostoevskii was not apparenton both sides. Other names appearing in the index, however, are testament to the wideranging nature of the interestsof both men, and their abilityto drawout and interlinkideas fromthe most diversesources.Given the easinessof navigation around the volumes, it is as equally rewarding to focus on one figure, for example Schopenhauer, and see how both Tolstoi and Strakhovengagedwith his philosophy, as it is to read severalconsecutive letters and watch the tone shift from the mundane and conversational to the lofty and abstract, or to chart the highs and lows of Tolstoi's emotional strength and witness the supportStrakhovlent him. The correspondence ended with Strakhov'sdeath in I896. We can only guessat what might have passedbetween them regarding,say,the publication of Resurrection, the creation of Whatis Art?,or Tolstoi's excommunication in I90I, had Strakhov lived longer. Tolstoi must have felt the absence of his friend most keenly at these moments. The last letter in the collection, written by Tolstoijust a few daysbefore Strakhov'sdeath, and which the latternever received, is annotated with Tolstoi'sreaction to the sad news in his diary:'Ia zhiv, no ne zhivu. Strakhov. Nynche uznal ob ego smerti' ('I am alive, but lifeless.Strakhov.Today I learntof his death')(p. 1029). This bleakstatement is, remarkably, the only expression of grief Tolstoi permitted himself in writing: there are no outpourings of feeling either in his letters around this time, or even furtheron in his diary.This fact goes unmentioned in Donskov's essay and would perhaps have merited some analysis, especially when compared to Tolstoi's reaction to the death of Dostoevskii, a man he never met. Here is where the value of a collection of letters can be most fully appreciated: when we catch a glimpse of the life beyond those parts documented on paper, of the essentiallyunfinalizableindividual. Department ofRussian andSlavonic Studies S. F. HUDSPITH University ofLeeds Jackson, Robert Louis (ed.).AJNew Word on'TheBrothers Karamazov'. Studiesin Russian Literature and Theory. Northwestern University Press, Evanston , IL, 2004. Xii + 26I pp. Notes. $79.95. THE essays in this fine new collection edited by Robert Louis Jackson demonstratethe healthy state of contemporaryDostoevskiistudies.As Robin REVIEWS 129 FeuerMiller states in her lively introduction, many of the contributionsoffer refreshing new approaches to TheBrothers Karamazov, typically focusing on hithertorarelyconsideredmoments and motifsin the text. Forexample, Kate Holland'sexamination of 'thelegend of the ladonka' and Horst-JurgenGerigk's discussion of the door in Fedor'shouse on the night of the murder both crucial to Dmitrii's trial and conviction -introduce questions about the status of narrativewhich unite these seemingly minor details to the fabric of the novel as a whole. Particularlyevident is the profound and positive influence of recent work on the religious bases of the author's oeuvre by Russian scholars,which has opened up many new modes of analysis. Gary Saul Morson writes on the opposition of the 'eschatologicalhopes' of pure faith and 'the belief in small, prosaic acts of goodness' (p. Io8). Susanne Fussorelatesmasturbatorymotifs from A Raw Youth to Alesha's ecstatic response to his vision of the marriage feast at Cana, to suggest his achievement of spiritual manhood. Maxim D. Shrayer links Liza Khokhlakova's anti-Semitic anecdote about the crucifixionof a child to the incident with Captain Snegirev,to reconfigurethe latteras a scapegoat, and contextualize his son's revenge. Elsewhere, Donna Orwin...

The Embodiment of Grief

Following recent work by James Engell, this paper sets out to explore points of connection between romantic literary criticism and the "new rhetoric" of the late 18th century. More specifically, it looks at how the earlier concept of the "rhetoric of passion" was taken up by Coleridge in his lectures on Shakespeare, focusing primarily on his treatment of Constance's speech on grief in King John. The same passage was evoked and strongly criticised by such "new rhetoricians" as Lord Kames and Joseph Priestley, who claimed that its intricate imagery rendered it unnatural and unsuitable to the expression of profound grief. Coleridge, by refuting these charges, redefines the earlier concept of the "language of passion" and turns it into a more comprehensive critical idea, which is able to accommodate figurative language beyond the rules of classical rhetoric or a rigidly conceived associationist psychology. He is aided in this by two things: first, by his new understanding of reading as on-going experience (as opposed to Kames's method, based on the analysis of a given passage in the light of pre-established rhetorical and psychological rules), and second, by his emphasis on the rhetorical "embodiment" that takes place in the "impassioned" literary text.

An Index of Fame?

This paper discusses the presentation of fame that can be identified through popular search terms. These terms reveal how the rapidly shifting interest in individual identities of ‘fame’ are cast against a continuous sequence of expected and unexpected events including movie releases, annual holidays, murders and terrorist attacks. The central claim of this paper is that fame is continuously reconstituted across a wide spectrum of cultural experiences and actions. Fame is attached to individuals as a personification of mainstream cultural fascination with specific events – whether manufactured or unexpected – and artefacts.

Loss and Bereavement among Israel's Muslims: Acceptance of God's Will, Grief, and the Relationship to the Deceased

The manner in which people manage their grief and mourning for loved ones who have died is a window into a culture and people. The beliefs and practices of Muslim citizens in Israel stem from a cultural-religious world-view that organizes the public and private experience of loss and bereavement. Prolonged public expression of grief and ritualized mourning are discouraged in Islamic practice which places great value on the acceptance of God's or Allah's will with restraint and understanding. The distinction between the return to functioning following loss and the management of memories and attachments to the deceased are fundamental to the Two Track Model of Bereavement (Rubin, 1999). The distinction is also relevant to the analysis of Israeli Muslims' responses to loss. Following an introduction to Islamic attitudes to death and loss, a number of basic elements of response to loss are considered. The Islamic emphasis on acceptance and a return to functioning is clear cut. The myriad ways in which the memory of the deceased and the relationship to him or her is bound up with the life lived following death is an area that leaves significant room for individual variation.

Death and football: an analysis of men's talk about emotions.

This study is concerned with men's talk about emotions and with how emotion discourses function in the construction and negotiation of masculine ways of doing emotions and of consonant masculine subject positions. A sample group of 16 men, who were recruited from two social contexts in England, participated in focus groups on 'men and emotions'. Group discussions were transcribed and analysed using discourse analysis. Participants drew upon a range of discursive resources in constructing masculine emotional behaviour and negotiating masculine subject positions. They constructed men as emotional beings, but only within specific, rule-governed contexts, and cited death, a football match and a nightclub scenario as prototypical contexts for the permissible/understandable expression of grief, joy and anger, respectively. However, in the nightclub scenario, the men distanced themselves from the expression of anger as violence, whilst maintaining a masculine subject position. These discursive practices are discussed in terms of the possibilities for effecting change in men's emotional lives.

Robert M. Levine (1941–2003)

Robert M. Levine (1941–2003)

Grim Pleasures: Statius's Poetic Consolationes

Through a simultaneous reading of the Thebaid and the Silvae, this paper demonstrates that Statius co-opts the feminine genre of lamentation—traditionally constructed as dangerous and excessive—in order to seduce his audience with the grim pleasure of indulging in grief. By moving women's voices closer to the center of his epic poem than Vergil did in the Aeneid, Statius turns the Thebaid into a platform of consolatory public discourse similar to the consolationes in the Silvae. In his poetic creations, he gives voice to silenced pain in opposition to the program of the philosophical consolatio, which had relegated violent laments to a position outside the scope of civilized self-expression. Through the transforming power of art, Statius sublimates the expression of human pain and grief into a cathartic consolatio.

TO CATCH THE SKY — THE JEWISH IDENTITY OF ISRAELIS

In the winter of 2000, Israel’s Channel 2 television presented the series To Catch the Sky. This series allows us to learn about the changes in the viewers’ — and especially the secular viewers’ — attitudes to the phenomenon of teshuvah. Studying the intentions of the programme’s creators, the narrative format, the mode of character design and, especially, the reception, reveals that To Catch the Sky is not only a family story, but, like many other Israeli dramas, also a dramatic document that faithfully represents the changes that have intensified among secular Israeli Jews in recent years. It is possible that the sadness expressed by many secular Israeli viewers at the separation of the parents at the end of the series is, perhaps unconsciously, an expression of grief over their weakening ties with Judaism.

A Greek perspective on concepts of death and expression of grief, with implications for practice.

Death has been conceptualised in different ways by different cultures and civilizations. It is increasingly entering into the public consciousness and society is now more ready to discuss and lessen the fear of dying and grief than it has been in the past few decades. In Greece, by Classical times there was an increase in burial rituals and commemorative practices compared to earlier periods. When Christianity was introduced into Greece it attempted to change the way the dead were mourned, preaching immortality of the soul and resurrection of the dead. Nevertheless, the way people grieve and bury their dead in Greece has not changed greatly since before the introduction of Christianity, except for the difficulty experienced in witnessing burial procedures observed in the large cities. Burial and bereavement traditions were introduced to help Greeks cope with death and bereavement. In Greece today beliefs about grief and death are based both on the ancient and the Christian Orthodox traditions. Healthcare professionals need to develop cultural competence to improve nursing and future health care. If care is culturally informed and tailored its quality is improved.

The Expressions of Loss and Grief Among Male Caregivers of Individuals with Alzheimer's Disease

While research on caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease dominated gerontological research for the last 25 years, little attention has been given to the grief reactions of caregivers, particularly male caregivers. This study examined the expression of grief and loss among 71 male caregivers who were currently caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's disease. Qualitative research methodology found that while not all caregivers perceived themselves to be grieving, expressions of loss were present in all statements. Implications for geriatric social work practice were examined.

The metaphor of "family" in staff communication about dying and death.

Caregiving staff need to have a way to make sense out of the death and dying of nursing home residents. A range of cultural and institutional factors (e.g., disenfranchised grief; professional distance) thwart their expression of grief. This research examines the neglected area of staff's social construction of the meaning of their relationship with dying and deceased residents. As part of a multisite ethnographic study of bereavement in long-term care, we analyzed themes in audiotranscribed in-depth qualitative interviews with 26 hands-on caregiving staff members (over two thirds were nurse's aides) in two religiously and culturally diverse nursing homes. A theme of family metaphor emerged as staff members spoke of family-like thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward long-term residents. Staff members spontaneously told stories of deaths in their own families, and they described how the meanings of resident deaths and family deaths were interrelated. The family metaphor provides cultural scripts that enable staff to overcome barriers to the expression of grief. The family metaphor structures the meaning for staff of death and bereavement, and it provides a bridge between their work and personal experience.

Expressing Grief Through Storytelling

The authors describe the use of storytelling to assist children who have experienced the death of a family member or friend. The results support the theory that children are able to use narrative to express grief and loss and that artwork can aid in the expression of both experiences.

‘A lifestyle coat-hanger’: a phenomenological study of the meanings of artwork for women coping with chronic illness and disability

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological enquiry was to explore the meanings and functions of art for a group of women living with disabling chronic illness. Participants were recruited on the basis that they considered artwork as central to their current well-being.Method: Thirty women were interviewed and five submitted written narratives. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was carried out.Results: About half of the participants had taken up their preferred artistic occupation since the onset of illness. Participants described their artwork as contributing to their health and well-being in many diverse ways. Art filled occupational voids, distracted thoughts away from illness, promoted the experience of flow and spontaneity, enabled the expression of grief, maintained a positive identity, and extended social networks. Its value was conceptualised by one participant as a ‘lifestyle coat-hanger’ organising numerous further roles and activities that gave purpose to life. Art was more than cathartic. It offered a versatile means of overcoming the restrictions imposed by illness on self and lifestyle, in many cases creating a more enriched lifestyle than before.Conclusion: The findings may encourage professionals working in health and rehabilitation settings to assist clients in identifying meaningful, creative occupations that are feasible within the limits imposed by illness or injury.

Grief and Loss: Perspectives for School Personnel

Discussing death, grief and loss is difficult, however, the impact of loss on students makes dealing with bereavement and grief unavoidable for teachers. To best prepare for helping students, school personnel need to deal with their own feelings about these issues first. Becoming familiar with children's perceptions of death, the stages and expressions of grief, and effective coping strategies will further enhance the support provided by school personnel to graving students (Westmoreland, 1996). This paper reviews the literature on grief and loss in order to provide a background from which school personnel may draw in their preparation for assisting students experiencing such circumstances. Clarification of commonly used terms is provided and the nature of grief and loss is explored. Implications for parents, teachers, counsellors and school systems are outlined and a brief overview of recommended strategies is presented.

Aspects of grief in conflict: Re‐visioning response to dispute

AbstractAlthough there are multiple theories on the causes of conflict and methods of managing dispute, one factor is not explicitly discussed; grief. Just as grief attends the physical loss of a loved one, it also attends the loss associated with conflict. Whether the loss is the position as winner, partner, provider, or good neighbor, being deprived of that identity is emotionally threatening. Grief affects the persons ability to function within the resolution process. By learning to acknowledge and allow expressions of grief within the conflict process, we increase our ability to promote resolution.