Grief and Loss

An article about Anders Nilsen's work, Don't Go Where I Can't Follow, in the context of grief theory and the literature of grief. The article can be found in the edited collection, Pathographics: Narrative, Aesthetics, Contention, Community (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020), and it was edited by Susan Merrill Squier and Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff.

Przysługujący widmom wywrotowy, niemalże rewolucyjny potencjał został odsunięty oraz zagubiony poprzez pozbycie się tej kontrowersyjnej kategorii z terytorium metafizyki i zbyt pośpieszne odesłanie jej do przestrzeni badań nad literaturą, sprowadzając ją jedynie do roli użytecznego, bezpiecznego narzędzia interpretacji.

Książka Andrzeja Marca odzyskuje niepokojący charakter widmontologii i ponownie wprowadza widma do myśli metafizycznej. Czym nawiedzona i przeniknięta jest tradycyjna metafizyka, co właściwie ją dręczy, nie daje spokoju oraz nieustannie podmywa jej stabilność?

Kategoria widma Derridy posłużyła Marcowi przede wszystkim do rozważań nad charakterem współczesności i przeobrażeń, jakie dokonały się w obrębie myśli ponowoczesnej. Współczesna kultura, zdaniem Marca, stała się miejscem powstawania widm, nieustannie powracających z przeszłości. Uznając, że nie jesteśmy już w stanie tworzyć utopijnych wizji przyszłości, autor stara się zdać sprawę z widmowego charakteru współczesnej kultury, analizując m. in. strategie vintage, retro, nurt no future w kulturze lat 70. czy nurt fantastyki naukowej w literaturze.

Here are the preliminary materials and first two chapters from my most recent book: Grief Worlds: A Study of Emotional Experience.

All chapters of the final published manuscript are freely available via MIT Press Direct:

https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5524/Grief-WorldsA-Study-of-Emotional-Experience

As you will see from other entries in this section, Oxford University Press and Palgrave/Springer now charge extortionate prices for books that I have published with them. (In all instances, I am happy to send you a PDF if you want to read them.)

In contrast, MIT Press made *Grief Worlds* freely available to all as a single PDF, without charging an open access fee. Hence, I am delighted to have published this book with them and would encourage others to consider doing the same.

The loss of the beloved, the fear or experience of it, either because of death or other reasons has been a repeatedly occurring theme in the work of Julian Barnes. In Before She Met Me, the fear of loss forms the subconscious of a humorous and meticulous examination of obsessive jealousy, in Talking It Over and Love etc., it is analysed through deception, revenge and resentment. Even behind the apparent postmodernist strategies and playful tone of Flaubert's Parrot, there resides the story of a retired, bereaving narrator who is trying to overcome the recent death of his once infidel wife. Irony and humour have always been the main traits of Barnes, no matter how serious the issues he represented. However, since the publication of The Sense of an Ending in 2011, Barnes's novels have grown to be more melancholic and lyrical in tone and less humorous and playful in style. Barnes's latest novels-The Sense of an Ending (2011), Levels of Life (2013), The Noise of Time (2016) and The Only Story (2018)-all develop around an aged protagonist or narrator whose story unfolds in an ironically self-aware lyrical tone, which detaches Barnes from postmodernism. The writing style of Julian Barnes, as a mature novelist, gets plainer as his mood becomes more sentimental and melancholic. This paper examines Barnes's representation of mourning and melancholy in Levels of Life where he dedicates the last section to his bereavement process after the loss of his wife, Pat Kavanagh, and The Only Story where he offers the piercing and grim love story of Susan (48) and Paul (19). The concepts of mourning and melancholy will be analysed by reference to Freud's and Derrida's views to illustrate how Barnes subtly probes them in the two novels as an artist.

Among the lessons that emerged after the recent presidential election is a recognition that teachers are generally not prepared to address the intersections of healing, politics, and emotion in classrooms. Now, more than ever, English educators must address trauma in classrooms, while also recognizing how individuals and groups are positioned differently in the material and emotional stakes of this election. Drawing on research, the voices of teachers, and our experiences over this past year, we call for more expansive conversations among English educators across perspectives concerned with creating safe, relational, anti-oppressive classrooms.

Each year in Australia 35,000 people are reported missing to law enforcement agencies (James, Anderson, and Putt, 2008). When a person is missing those who are left behind exist in a space between the person being both here and gone (Boss, 1999). Within this space, a sense of ambiguous loss is punctuated by feelings of hope. Given the lack of certainty surrounding the permanency of the loss and the absence of the customary markers of grief, those left behind 'engage the future in an extended or suspended present' (Hogben, 2006, p. 333). A study currently being undertaken by the author seeks to deconstruct hope and its dual role in being attached to the relational bond with the missing person, as well as the individual's capacity to exist in a space where hope and despair shift on a fluctuating basis, known as a 'liminal space'.

Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the film version of Joan Lindsay's book Picnic at Hanging Rock. First published in 1967, the book is an Australian-based story set in 1900, in which four students and a teacher from a private girls’ school go missing after climbing Hanging Rock. The narrative of the book plays with the danger of the Australian bush, at a time when it was still perceived to be wild and untamed, ready to consume those who did not understand its risks. However, Lindsay also played with its deep magic, which lingers still, where Aboriginal spiritualities and mysticism converge.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(16)00093-6

The study presents the Italian validation of the questionnaire Continuing Bonds Scale (CBS) by Field and Filanosky (2010). The questionnaire consists of two scales: Externalized (6 items) and Internalized (10 items) and was completed by 414 people who have suffered the loss of a loved one. Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed a two-factor model, 16 items solution (KMO = .928, χ 2 = 2694.84, df = 120, p < .001). Confirmatory Factor Analyses indicated that the two-factor solution provided a better fit to the data (CFI = .935; TLI = .925; RMSEA = .063). The factors demonstrated good internal reliability. The study shows that CBS has good psychometric properties for clinical use.

To date, the US military has made major strides in acknowledging and therapeutically addressing trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in service members and their families. However, given the nature of warfare and high rates of losses sustained by both military members (e.g., deaths of fellow unit members) and military families (e.g., loss of a young parent who served in the military), as well as the ongoing threat of loss that military families face during deployment, we propose that a similar focus on grief is also needed to properly understand and address many of the challenges encountered by bereaved service members, spouses, and children. In this article, we describe a newly developed theory of grief (multidimensional grief theory) and apply it to the task of exploring major features of military-related experiences during the phases of deployment, reintegration, and the aftermath of combat death—especially as they impact children. We also describe implications for designing preventive interventions during each phase and conclude with recommended avenues for future research. Primary aims are to illustrate: (1) the indispensable role of theory in guiding efforts to describe, explain, predict, prevent, and treat maladaptive grief in military service members, children, and families; (2) the relevance of multidimensional grief theory for addressing both losses due to physical death as well as losses brought about by extended physical separations to which military children and families are exposed during and after deployment; and (3) a focus on military-related grief as a much-needed complement to an already-established focus on military-related PTSD.

Keywords: Grief - Theory - Military - Family - Bereavement - Child - Adolescent - Parent - Combat

Background: The experience of grief in family caregivers as they provide care for
persons with dementia is often overlooked. The Marwit‐Meuser Caregiver Grief
Inventory (MM‐CGI) is one among the few scales that capture such experiences. In
a recent study, MM‐CGI was found to contain three subscales identifying dimensions
of loss in caregivers—Personal‐Sacrifice Burden (PSB), Heartfelt Sadness, Longing, and
Worry (HSLW), and Felt Isolation (FI). We aimed to evaluate the validity and utility of
these dimensions in a multiethnic Asian population.
Methods: Family caregivers (n = 394) completed MM‐CGI and scales assessing
caregiver burden, depression, and gains. Internal consistency reliability was examined
using Cronbach α; test‐retest reliability using intraclass correlation coefficient; and
construct validity using Pearson correlation coefficient. The utility of the MM‐CGI
dimensions was evaluated by comparing caregivers with high subscale scores across
dementia stages and caregiving relationship.
Results: The three dimensions of MM‐CGI exhibited adequate internal consistency,
test‐retest reliability, construct validity, and known‐group validity. PSB correlated
most strongly with caregiver burden (r = 0.78); HSLW with caregiver depression (r =
0.75); and FI with caregiver burden and caregiver depression (r = 0.60, respectively).
Caregivers with high total grief scores tended to experience most difficulty with
HSLW (90.8%), followed by PSB (75.4%) and FI (46.2%). The three dimensions also
increased across the dementia stages, with FI higher in mild dementia, PSB higher in
moderate dementia, and HSLW higher in severe dementia. Spousal caregivers experienced
most difficulty in HSLW, whereas children caregivers experienced similar levels
of difficulty across the dimensions.
Conclusions: The three dimensions of MM‐CGI captured distinct aspects of caregiver
grief in a multiethnic Asian population and would enable more individualized
assessments and interventions for caregiver grief.

Un vent nouveau souffle en Occident sur ce qui touche au souvenir du défunt, amorçant une période de «réappropriation du mort» ainsi que des rites autour de la mort. Alors que les cimetières traditionnels sont de moins en moins visités, les mémoriaux éphémères et virtuels se multiplient comme autant de moyens de réécrire l’histoire et d’affirmer le désir de vivre en société.

A Bill before the New South Wales Parliament attempted to re-frame harm to late-term fetuses as grievous bodily harm to the fetus itself rather than (under the existing law) grievous bodily harm to the mother. To achieve this, the Bill extended legal personhood to the fetus for a limited number of offences. The Bill was brought on behalf of Brodie Donegan, who lost her daughter Zoe at 32 weeks' gestation when Donegan was hit by a drug-affected driver. This article asks what the perspective of a grieving mother can bring to the debate, in terms of helping the criminal law accurately come to grips with the complexity of pregnancy and the specific harm of fetal loss. It assesses the likely impacts of a change to fetal personhood and suggests an alternative legislative approach which is less likely to result in an erosion of bodily autonomy for pregnant women.

The presence of absence is a core element in archival theory and practice (Derrida, 1996). Much of the power and meaning in Jon Rafman’s work owes its existence to something that is
absent – to what it lacks – as much as to what is present to it and within it. To remember the past, to archive the past is as much about representing loss as it is about curating what remains. An
anxiety about the presence and absence of the past permeates Rafman's work. For loss, be it the actual or dreaded loss of a loved one, of a cherished ideal, country or ideology is a universal
human experience. Despite the often haunted attempt to protect against its pain, the cherished lost ideal or love must be represented, rendered fixed in some manner, must be made known, be made sacred, revered or devalued, be placed in a repository, be it memory, history or virtual worlds. Thus Benjamin, Derrida and Foucault underscore the centrality and yet the difficulty of the idea of archive.

ABSTRACT

Background: Parents who experience a perinatal loss often leave the hospital with empty arms and no tangible mementos
to validate the parenting experience. Opportunities to create parenting experiences with transitional objects exist
following the infant’s death.

Purpose: This article offers suggestions for staff in units where infant loss is possible to best assist parents in optimal
grieving through the offering of transitional bereavement objects.

Methods/Search Strategy: CINAHL Complete, MEDLINE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews were
searched using the following key words—perinatal bereavement, grief, perinatal loss, transitional objects, bereavement
photography—and the search was limited to 5 years and the English language.

Findings/Results: Recommendations exist and are well supported by leading neonatal and perinatal nursing and medicine
organizations for the use of transitional objects to facilitate healthy grieving when parents experience perinatal loss.
Transitional objects are mementos that validate the meaning of parenthood—even if the physical act of parenting was
brief. Nursing and medical staff have significant roles in guiding parents to a healthy state of bereavement and ultimately
managing long-term grief.

Implications for Practice: Transitional objects can be provided by staff that are low-cost or free, such as taking photographs
for parents, or they can involve purchased products from perinatal bereavement programs. In the latter case,
funding needs are a consideration for budgeting decisions.

Implications for Research: Immediately following a loss, parents experience a brief sense of healing after receiving
mementos of their infant. However, further research is needed to assess long-term effects of receiving transitional
objects following perinatal loss.

Key Words: bereavement , bereavement photography , grief , infant loss , perinatal death , perinatal loss , transitional
objects

We're all going to die, and you'd have thought that we'd have got used to the idea by now.  So, why is managing loss so difficult, and how do our after-death beliefs frame the way in which we re-integrate into normal life? This three part paper addresses the profound emotions experienced during bereavement, investigates the eschatology of differing religions, and finally attempts to produce a practical overview for those who work closely with people who may soon face life's greatest adventure.

Based on field work with Jerusalem Burial Society, it describes general aspects of Jewish burial ritual and the unique customs of Jerusalem, such as dancing round the corpse just prior to the burial itself. Observations of funerals highlighted how much these events represent a microcosm of the conflict between religious and secular jews. One result, is when ultra orthodox religious experts leave, secular jews return for a "second funeral".

Based on the research on continuing bonds (CB) with a deceased person to date, the reports of clinicians, and the contemporary theory of attachment, two dimensions of CB were distinguished: (i) a concrete CB, essentially characteristic of unresolved and prolonged grief, and (ii) a symbolic CB, specific to grief resolution. The psychometric properties of the Continuing Bonds Scale (CBS) were examined in a sample of persons from Poland (N = 244) bereaved after the death of a family member from 0.5 to 18 years before the survey (M = 3.45, SD = 2.25). In the first sub-sample (n = 141), the exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor structure of the CBS: the concrete and the symbolic dimension of the CB with the deceased. In the second sub-sample (n = 103), a good fit of this two-factor model of the CBS was determined by confirmatory factor analysis. At the bivariate analysis level, the concrete CB with the deceased positively correlated with attachment anxiety, and negatively with grief resolution and time since loss; the symbolic CB negatively correlated with attachment avoidance. When predicting grief resolution for two dimensions of CB (controlling for adult attachment, and sociodemographic and loss-related variables), concrete CB was a negative predictor, and symbolic CB was a positive predictor of the outcome variable. The reliability of the CBS subscales was acceptable. The CBS is a valid and reliable measure of two different CB dimensions. The model of concrete and symbolic CB with the deceased was discussed in the light of the current results and contemporary attachment theory.

Scholars have long called for understandings of disability to move beyond the notion of disability as traumatic and stigmatizing. Nonetheless, the introduction of disability into a family can be particularly traumatic. Including ablebodied family members in the study of disabled persons offers additional insight into the ways the ableist gaze constructs disability as well as into resulting traumatic ruptures in communication. Writing disability, like writing trauma, poses a dilemma for the autoethnographer. Performative writing offers a way to interrogate the fragmented locations of identity in this unique familial relationship, as well as to embody the difficulties in narrating trauma. Ultimately, this piece illustrates not only the difficulty of acknowledging and writing a private, physical realm of traumatic experience, but also how trauma can be shared and creates shared aspects of identity among family members.

Art Spiegelman's "Maus" is an emotional graphic novel about the life of Spiegelman himself and the atrocities that his parents faced during the Holocaust. This paper looks at Spiegelman's use of animals as characters and  how that connects to the idea of "dehumanization."

Nach einer Fehl- oder Stillgeburt sind Betroffene mit der Vorstellung konfrontiert, es sei ja noch kein richtiges Kind gewesen, der Verlust sei entsprechend wenig betrauernswert. Julia Böcker geht empirisch der Frage nach, unter welchen Bedingungen es gesellschaftlich als legitim gilt, das vorzeitige Ende einer Schwangerschaft als Tod und Verlust eines Kindes zu behandeln. Im Ergebnis steht die Rekonstruktion subjektiver Verlusterfahrungen im Kontext der kulturellen Ordnungen um körperliche Materialität, medizinisch (un)bestimmtes Leben und soziale Personalität. Deutlich werden der Umgang mit Wissensgrenzen und das Paradox einer subjektverantworteten Trauerkultur in der Gegenwart.

In this essay, the author reflects on the importance of accepting and expressing emotion in teach-ers’ lived experiences. By centering emotion work in preservice teacher praxis, teacher educators can make emotion work visible and assign value to it.

Please note that I am not permitted to disseminate this test directly, no matter who requests it. This test is officially owned by UCLA and copyright protected and distributed through Behavioral Health Innovations through a licensing agreement with UCLA's Office of Intellectual Property.

Versions of the PCBD Checklist are currently available in both English (test and administration manual) and Spanish (test only).

For fee schedule and licensing agreement (available for online purchase) see https://www.reactionindex.com. The primary author can be contacted at clayne@nova.edu.

For a press release, see http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/new-ucla-university-of-texas-checklist-helps-identify-children-teens-with-bereavement-disorder

ABSTRACT: The Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (PCBD) Checklist—Youth Version is a psychological test for bereaved children and adolescents aged 8-18. It is designed to assess content domains corresponding to DSM-5 proposed Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder symptom criteria, including Separation Distress, Reactive Distress, Existential/Identity Related Distress, and Distress over Circumstances of the Death. The PCBD Checklist replaces the (now-retired) early prototype measure, the UCLA Extended Grief Inventory (Layne, Savjak, Saltzman, & Pynoos, 2001) as a more rigorously constructed, developmentally attuned, psychometrically sound, and clinically useful instrument. The 39 PCBD Checklist items were written specifically to correspond with DSM-5 proposed PCBD diagnostic criteria. Consistent with best practice test construction procedures (Haynes, Richard, & Kubany, 1995), each PCBD test item has been extensively field-tested by a team of ten masters-level clinicians and clinical child psychologists under the clinical supervision of one of the test developers (Dr. Julie Kaplow). Iterative field-testing was conducted with 237 bereaved children and adolescents aged 8-18 in various field settings including bereavement camps, grief support facilities, community clinics, and school-based health clinics. The PCBD Checklist can be used for a range of clinical applications including risk screening, treatment triage, case conceptualization and treatment planning (including assessment-driven treatment tailoring), and treatment outcome evaluation. Because Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (PCBD) is a proposed research diagnosis located in the appendix of DSM-5, the PCBD Checklist can only be used to assign a provisional (unofficial) discrete (present/absent) PCBD diagnosis as well as yield continuous Criterion B and C subscale scores. Administration time for the PCBD Checklist is approximately 5-8 minutes, and scoring and interpretation take between 5-10 minutes. The PCBD Checklist is typically clinician-administered but can be adapted for self-report with older children and adolescents. Training in the administration, scoring, and interpretation of the PCBD Checklist can be provided in person or online by authorized trainers. Publication Date: Nov 2014.

Initial inquiries regarding the PCBD Checklist can be directed to Christopher Layne at Clayne@nova.edu.

Technical questions regarding copyright and licensing of the PCBD Checklist can be directed to Dr. Alan Steinberg at asteinberg@reactionindex.com. Be sure to also CC Christopher Layne at clayne@nova.edu .

Death has been studied comprehensively only since the 1950s. Regardless the great few theorists who elaborated on death related subjects due to World War experiences (Freud, 1915), the science of death only thrived as such with Feifel’s brilliant work The meaning of death in 1959. Death and dying have mainly been examined as counterparts of life, and not as parts of the life’s course (Pentaris, 2011).

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the social construction of the meaning of death in a constantly changing globalized society and the cultural point of reference that guides attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and interpretations towards death and dying. Cultural identities, as well as religious and ethnic ones, guide perceptions on one’s own experiences (Walter, 1994; Pentaris, 2011). Alongside the attempt to highlight the importance of culture in the meaning we make of death and dying, an example from an Afghani case study is used. The latter enhances the understanding of cultural dimensions of death as to be linked with social policies and health care practice with dying and bereaved people. Suggestions for professional practice implications are made, therefore.

Bu çalışmanın amacı, psikolojik danışman adaylarının kayıp yaşantıları ve yas süreci ile ilgili değişkenlerin incelenmesidir. Yaşanan kayıpların ardından ortaya çıkan yas süreci doğal ve evrensel bir tepki olmasına rağmen hangi dönemde olursa olsun bireyler çeşitli sıkıntılar hissedebilmekte; kayıpla birlikte kişilerin yaşam kalitesi düşebilmekte; fiziksel, bilişsel ve davranışsal zorluklar nedeniyle de profesyonel desteğe ihtiyaç duyabilmektedirler. Psikolojik danışmanların etkili bir psikolojik danışma süreci yürütebilmesi için kendi yaşadıkları olumsuz yaşam deneyimleriyle etkili şekilde başa çıkabilmesi ve özellikle kendi kayıp ve yas süreçlerini başarılı şekilde yönetebilmeyi öğrenmeleri gerekmektedir. Bu araştırmada rehberlik ve psikolojik danışmanlık programı öğrencilerinin kayıp ve yas süreci ile ilgili değişkenlerin incelenmesi amaçlanmaktadır. Araştırma, nitel araştırma modelinde olgu bilim deseninde tasarlanmıştır. Çalışmanın katılımcıları uygun örnekleme yöntemlerinden kolay ulaşılabilirlik tekniği kullanılarak oluşturulmuştur. Araştırma Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy Üniversitesi ve İzmir Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi PDR Lisans programlarının 3 ve 4. sınıflarına devam eden 115 psikolojik danışman adayından herhangi bir kayıp yaşantısı olduğunu bildiren 81 gönüllü psikolojik danışman adayı ile gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırmada nitel veriler, yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme tekniği ile elde edilmiştir. Sonuç olarak, bu çalışmada psikolojik danışman adaylarının çoğunluğunun aile büyükleri başta olmak üzere ölüme bağlı kayıpları daha fazla yaşadığı; yas süreçlerinde az sayıda psikolojik danışman adayının herhangi bir profesyonel destek aldıkları; kullandıkları başa çıkma stratejileri ve yasla ilgili duygu ve düşünceleri incelendiğinde yaslarını sağlıklı şekilde yapılandırmadıkları görülmektedir. Sonuçlar psikolojik danışma becerileri açısından değerlendirildiğinde psikolojik danışman adaylarının yaşadıkları kayıplarla etkili şekilde başa çıkabilmeyi ve yas sürecini yapılandırmayı öğrenmeye gereksinimleri olduğu görülmektedir. Elde edilen bulgulara dayanarak psikolojik danışman eğitiminde kayıp ve yas konusuna odaklanmak, psikolojik danışman adaylarının kendi kayıp ve yas süreçlerini etkili şekilde yönetmesine yardımcı olmak ve yas danışmanlığı becerilerini kazandırmaya yönelik çalışmalar yapmak önemli bir ihtiyaç olarak görülmektedir.

Reflecting on the role that writing played in the recovery, the author describes the mourning process after loss of her husband during the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007. She analysis how her traumatization was intensified by the interaction with the public. The private and tranquil space of her home is portrait as the center of mourning and healing. Through writing she regained emotional control in and over literary and figurative spaces of traumatization which enabled her gradual reintegration into the public life.

This is the keynote address given to the Tennessee Association of Pastoral Therapists, an organization of pastoral psychotherapists, on August 14, 2009, in Nashville, TN, USA. It is a reflection by the author upon the continued developments of his thoughts subsequent to the publication of his article "Recovering Grief in the Age of Grief Recovery,” The Journal of Pastoral Theology, Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring 2003.

Grief is one of many heavy emotions that can be difficult to cope with, let alone interpret. This paper outlines a few creative art therapy specialties, including expressive writing and drama therapy, as a healing tool to survive and understand unexpected loss.

This paper evaluates silence as a therapeutic practice in pastoral care for traumatic grief and loss. Informed by the history of attachment and mourning theory, its research considers the basic effect that empathy has upon the therapeutic relationship around psychic difference. The study appraises the potential resources and detriments that empathic language may have for the grief process. Offering clinical examples in hospice chaplaincy, it refutes the idea that silence is formulaic tool to be used. It instead offers silence as the acceptance of the limits of empathic language and the affirmation of psychological difference and theological wholeness.

Recent scholars have noted the anti-consolatory trend in modern elegy, and remarked on the ways in which twentieth-century elegies revolt against the convention of compensatory consolation in their expression of disconsolation. Using Wallace Stevens's "The Owl in the Sarcophagus" as a test case, this essay proposes a rethinking of our notion of elegiac consolation: instead of reading this allegorical, equivocating poem as an anti-elegy, this article argues, with the aid of D. W. Winnicott's object-relation theory, that the poem's consolation is based less on the mechanism of compensation than on the cryptonymic process of placing an unplaced feeling of loss.

This article draws on Robert Solomon's distinction between grief and mourning to examine the old question of whether Stoicism's approach to the emotions is wholly 'unsympathetic'.  It argues that, if mourning, including public commemoration and sharing of memories, is taken to be the best means to work through grief, and come to terms in time with loss, then Seneca's Consolatio ad Marciam is clearly "pro-mourning".  Marcia's grief is preventing others from even mentioning Drusus around her, after three years, and Seneca wishes to redress this failure to mourn, which can do honor to her love for her son.

Readers of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye classify the protagonist, Holden Caulfield as either a wealthy, pretentious sixteen-year-old who is viewed by his society as delinquent or a mentally troubled, socially awkward boy in desperate need of help. Since the novel’s publication, critics have argued whether Holden is a reliable or unreliable narrator and its readers have questioned his motives for telling this story. This essay will present Holden’s narration as both reliable and unreliable by focusing on the novel as a reflective piece written by a Holden who is receiving treatment for mental health issues. It will also showcase the mental health struggle of Holden Caulfield and help the reader gain insight into his decision-making process throughout the novel. Holden has experienced several traumatic moments in his life and with the use of trauma theory, this essay will illustrate Holden’s mental stability and demonstrate how Salinger presents an adolescent struggling with the grieving process, reliving his past, and a desire to protect the innocent. The reader will understand the choices Holden makes are not because of his recklessness, but because of his untreated mental condition and his unrealistic desire to change the world into a better place for children, especially his younger sister.

It has been almost 15 years since my wife’s sudden death in 42 days from Pancreatic Cancer. 

What started out as a journal for my daughters has grown into a book about our family’s experience in dealing with grief in particular my 3 daughters who were 9, 12 and 15 years old—A Beautiful Life…the little things that help a grieving family.

A Beautiful Life prospectively shows what little things people can do or say to help in the present moment throughout a decade of life for a grieving family.
Unlike any book printed today A Beautiful Life…the little things that help a grieving family:
·    Offers a pathway for emotional survival, a message of hope, resilience and understanding during the darkest times.
·    Empowers friends and family with thoughts, actions and deeds that are helpful for a grieving family today and tomorrow.
·    Illuminates the perspectives of bereaved father and three teenage daughters

This book opens up the discussion of grief and loss in a new way, prospectively as it happened and debunks traditional thinking of processing grief in terms of stages. 

Other press coverage WWAY TV 3 interview:
https://www.wwaytv3.com/2019/12/30/local-author-looks-to-help-grieving-families-with-new-book/

NPR interview and published an essay about transforming the pain of grief to the serenity of gratitude.
https://www.whqr.org/post/coastline-stedman-stevens-how-talking-about-death-makes-more-beautiful-life#stream/0

Ben Steelman book review https://www.starnewsonline.com/entertainment/20200523/bookmarks-repair-manual-for-broken-hearts

We assume that despite the universal presence of death, the response to it might vary from culture to culture. The way people think about their loss and grief might be all the more different. The aims of this dissertation are: to study how Americans and Poles conceptualize loss and grief, to examine cultural differences in conceptualizing loss and grief, and to explore in what ways culture and individual experience might affect conceptualization of loss and grief. We conducted a qualitative research study (questionnaires). A total of 37 Americans and 42 Poles, who had lost a loved one within 1–5 years, took part in the survey. The data was analyzed in three chapters. The metaphors and blends (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Fauconnier & Turner 2002) were grouped according to the semantic patterns we identified. This allowed us to develop the models of the concepts of loss and grief. A separate chapter concerned loss and grief in relation to the mode of death and the type of previous relationship with the lost one. In general, both Americans and Poles viewed loss negatively. The most common way of seeing LOSS was ABSENCE OF SOMEONE. Other categories were more metaphorical. Although LOSS was mainly viewed negatively, this was not always the case with GRIEF. We hope that this dissertation will be useful not only to linguists and scholars within culture studies, but also to psychologists, therapists, and anyone interested in the topics of loss and grief.

In the literature on competitive Irish step-dance, or indeed that of loss and grief, little attention has been paid to the experience of mourning the dancer identity as one leaves behind the competitive scene. This ambiguous loss may also coincide with other life changes for the former dancer, including the loss of physical ability or agility due to injury or the toll that years of competitive Irish dancing can take on the body. This paper primarily applies an auto-ethnographical lens in which the lived experience of one former competitive Irish dancer, who has made the transition to a post-dancer role, is reflected upon and explored, in order to stimulate discussion on what it means to be an Irish dancer.

"Two bereavement-related disorders are proposed for the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V): Adjustment Disorder Related to Bereavement, to be located in the main body of the text as an official diagnostic entity; and Bereavement-Related Disorder (most recently termed Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder), including a Traumatic Death Specifier, to be located in the Appendix as an invitation for further research. These diagnoses currently do not include developmentally informed criteria, despite the importance of developmental processes in the ways children and adolescents grieve. In this article, we draw upon a selective review of the empirical literature and expert clinical knowledge to recommend developmentally informed modifications and specifiers of the proposed criteria for both bereavement disorders and strategies to
improve future research. This article is derived from an invited report submitted to the DSM-V Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma, and Dissociative Disorders Sub-Work Group, and suggested modifications have received preliminary approval to be incorporated into the DSM-V at the time of this writing. Adoption of these proposals will have far-reaching consequences, given that DSM-V criteria will influence both critical treatment choices for bereaved youth and the next generation of research studies."

Surely, our souls, wealth and families are wonderful gifts from God which He has loaned to us so that we may take benefit from them for a set period; and he takes them away after the termination of that period Thus, gratitude becomes binding on us when He gives, and patience becomes obligatory when He takes away."

- Prophet Muhammad ﷺ letter to Mu'az- Ibn-Jabal

(Originally titled "Grief", it was retitled along with "Gifts & Gratitude" when my mother passed away on December 26, 2021)