A new special issue of American Psychologist, titled “9/11: Ten Years Later,” takes a look at how survivors coped and who needed the most help. I analyze the report at TIME.com.
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God and Grief
The Reverend Thomas G. Long, of Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, recently wrote an interesting article in the journal Christian Century. “Theologians had been raising objections to Kubler-Ross’s ideas for a long time. The idea that people sail across the stygian stream towards some tranquil stage of acceptance is not an empirical observation. It is bad theology, a product of Kubler-Ross’s smuggled Neoplatonism, which stands in tension with Christian eschatology and the biblical concept of death as the final enemy.”
Posted in Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Stages, grief
Tagged god, grief, reverend thomas g. long, stages, theology, truth about grief
Do Men and Women Grieve Differently?
An article in the New York Times about male grievers wanting to join support groups and finding only women raises the question: do men and women grieve differently? Author Perry Garfinkel concludes that yes, they do, but cites as evidence some stereotypes that have never been proven: that women are more expressive and “intuitive,” while men don’t want to talk about their feelings. I reviewed all the literature and devoted a whole chapter in my book to this debate and conclude that the research is too flawed to tell if men and women grieve differently, and if there are differences, they’re certainly not as great as the similarities. For the most part, the attempt to “gender” grief—just as marshalling it into stages—does it a disservice.
Posted in Gender and Grief, Support groups, grief
Tagged do men grieve differently, grief, men, sex differences, women
Online Support Groups—Too Much Self-Disclosure?
As of 2009, there were an estimated 55 different Internet grief support groups offering communities for all types of losses. Earlier research described such sites as “cyber-refuges” from a world where grief was unwelcome, and found that those bereaved by suicide in particular found such support online helpful, especially having access to an outlet day and night. But a recent analysis of the content of messages posted on several web-based support groups found that self-disclosure accounted for two-thirds of all statements. Although research on peer helping has found that such a high level of self-disclosure can hinder interaction, the authors conclude that the bereaved who go online are both offering and seeking support, and that a protocol has developed whereby respondents share their own personal experiences in response to the original post. The authors conclude, “In many cases, internet grief communities may serve as a valued supplement to therapy. However, it is important that practitioners weigh the potential benefits and risks of grief forums when recommending them to clients. They also should monitor their clients’ experiences with such forums.”
What Do People Really Need in a Crisis?
Logistical help, not counseling. Great article by humanitarian aid expert Dr. Sheri Fink on Time.com about what the people of Japan really need right now.
Posted in Grief Around the Globe, Grief Counseling, grief, resilience
Tagged earthquake, grief, Japan, resilience
How Your Brain Copes With Grief
Just as neuroscientists have pinpointed exactly what happens to your brain under stress, so too have they been able to identify some of the mechanisms of resilience. A fascinating article in Scientific American looks at the biochemical, genetic and behavioral foundations of emotional strength, and how that information may help us when our healing processes fail.
Posted in bonanno, grief, resilience, science
Tagged bonanno, coping ugly, grief, resilience, Scientific American
The Truth About Widowhood
In the past decade, social scientists with unprecedented access to large groups of widows and widowers have learned that, as individual an experience as grief may be, there are specific patterns to its intensity and duration that are arguably more helpful in guiding the bereaved in what to expect. Isn’t it time we update our popular notions about widowhood as well?
Read more from my Op-Ed in the New York Times, February 15th, 2011.
Posted in Complicated Grief, Widowhood
Tagged bonanno, joan didion, joyce carol oates, new york times, widowhood
Shouldn’t Grief Have the Power to Enact Change?
As the lawn outside of the University Medical Center in Tucson becomes blanketed by photos and candles and stuffed animals commemorating the people gunned down by Jared Loughner, I turned for insight to Memorial Mania, a new book that documents the explosion in public memorialization in America and found this interesting observation: “Some temporary memorials engage social and political transformation–granting personhood to previously silenced subjects, demanding inclusion for those subjects within an expanded national imagination,” writes art historian Erika Lee Doss. “Yet other temporary memorials are frozen in emotional catharsis, fixated on exclusionary religious and political tenets and/or beholden to grief industry experts who promote them as ways to “work through” trauma. They are the material and emotional testimonials of a nation grief-stricken by violent death and yet seemingly disengaged from the social and political initiatives that might check such violence.”
New Ways To Think About Grief
A five-page adaptation from The Truth About Grief: The Myth of Its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss, has just been published in the current issue of Time Magazine.
“New Ways To Think About Grief,” Time Magazine, January 24, 2011
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2042372,00.html
