James and Friedman (2009) are vehement in their assertions that grief is not purely a mental or “intellectual” problem: “Grief is a broken heart, not a broken brain. All efforts to heal the heart with the head fail because the head is the wrong tool for the job. It’s like trying to paint with a hammer—it only makes a mess” (p.5). I would emphasize, however, that your emotions have a reciprocal relationship with your perceptions and cognitive decision making. Strong emotions, sometimes referred to as “affects,” can be stimulated by significant loss, knocking your rational self off its throne. Thus, you are not always in your “right mind” when you are grieving (Stein, 2004). This can lead to the utilization of short-term escapes I mentioned earlier, which serve to temporarily stave off the emotions that fuel cyclical negative thoughts.
HOW DO MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL STRESSORS COMPLICATE UNFINISHED BUSINESS?
The problem with taking a purely intellectual approach to recovery is that though it may be well meaning, it could be unintentionally abusive and belittling to one’s emotions. For example, if a person is suffering a bad breakup and a close friend says, “Don’t feel bad, he was a jerk anyway. Plenty of fish in the sea.” The observance of maltreatment and the individual’s ability to find a new partner, while factually correct, are emotionally barren. They also indirectly criticize the griever for still loving someone that has been deemed unworthy, putting the griever in the position of feeling attacked and defending the lost love object, which is confusing and can lead to emotional isolation and withdrawal from social supports.
Another example of intellectualizing and rationalizing is the tendency to compare and minimize: “Well, I may be sad and alone, but at least I’m not down and out on the street.” Again, while factually accurate, this attitude only serves to push the emotions you have a right to feel and express by the wayside, to remain ignored and unacknowledged. This is a function of internalized ideas about shame and “selfishness.” Please take this to heart; it is not selfish to grieve, nor is it selfish to move on. Wolfelt (2014) makes this point most eloquently: “To honor your grief is not self-destructive or harmful, it is life sustaining and life-giving, and it ultimately leads you back to love again. In this way, love is both the cause and the antidote…it is a great gift that we can openly mourn our life losses.” This is further illuminated in the “six myths about grief.”
What defines a social context for grief?
There are three things that define a social context for grief: 1) how others react to you and your grief on an individual level, 2) socially accepted rituals for grieving in a group context, and 3) the political labels we assign the griever.
1.How others react to you and your grief on an individual level is deeply revealing of all personality constructs involved. How you generally respond to obstacles in life will likely reflect your response to significant loss, on an intensified level. For example, if you are quiet by nature, you may express grief quietly, while your brother prods, “Cry it out!” If you are naturally outgoing, you might express your grief openly, prompting your stuffy aunt to roll her eyes and harshly whisper, “Put a lid on it.” If loved ones criticize your coping skills on a regular day, they will respond in equal measure to the intensity of your grief.
2.Socially accepted rituals for grieving in a group context can help or hinder your grief experience. There is a wealth of research that supports the importance of ritual in creating a context of meaning. A funeral or similar ceremony is a time and place to express your feelings about death, thus legitimizing them. A funeral can also bring you closer to your social supports in a collaborative effort, which has been shown to aid in the surpassing of individual differences and conflicts (Hansen, 2009). Public acknowledgement and support also affirms that life goes on, and can serve to bring one back to his or her religious, spiritual, and/or philosophical beliefs in a positive fashion (James and Freidman, 2009; Matthews and Clark, 1998; Wolfelt, 2004).
3.The political labels we assign the griever depend upon the type of loss a person experiences. For example, there are many support groups and organizations centered around the circumstances of loss, such as suicide, murder, AIDS and other chronic illnesses, death of a child, military service, divorce, rape, substance abuse, and so on. Self-help groups centered around a type of loss not only serve you in your ongoing journey towards integration and recovery from grief feelings, but they help you acknowledge the myths about grief you may be unconsciously perpetuating, as you listen to someone describe the tricks he used to play in avoiding his feelings. Loss-specific support groups also provide a safe place in which to express yourself, because you anticipate an empathic response (James and Freidman, 2009; Jung, 2001; Maisel and Raeburn, 2008; Matthews and Clark, 1998; Wolfelt, 2004).
HOW DO SOCIAL STRESSORS COMPLICATE UNFINISHED BUSINESS?
1.Friends, family members, lovers, and other community members cannot help but project their own ideas about how to handle grief onto your situation. Because we are ill equipped as a society with knowing how to acknowledge, confront, and process loss, your pain will inevitably conjure the echoes of their repressed pain and unacknowledged losses. This complicates grief because it illuminates pre-existing interpersonal dynamics that may have been left unresolved with remaining loved ones. Thus, the “six myths about grief” surface to unendingly irritate, exasperate, manipulate, cajole, bully, and/or persuade us away from our own personal experience and processing of grief (James and Friedman, 2009). This is, however, why grief is such an opportunity for transformation. Because it opens up the possibility for not only recontextualizing your life as it pertains to the lost love object, but also as it pertains to your ongoing relationships.
2.Socially accepted rituals for grieving may hinder and/or complicate unfinished business, if it is experienced as a de-legitimizing, ostracizing, conflictual, and/or meaningless event. While everyone accepts a funeral is the appropriate time and place to express grief (even if your form of expression rubs a few the wrong way), it may be perceived as the only time and place in which it is appropriate, thus compartmentalizing and disqualifying the expression of those feelings in a different context. In the planning of a funeral, family members have to come together to divvy up the responsibilities. Inevitably, someone must be appointed or elected the leader and the rest must follow. More often than not, this is bound to cause conflict, stirring up those long ignored interpersonal dynamics, and for some, leading to feelings of being devalued and ostracized, which negatively impacts the “meaning making” aspect of the public ritual. Additionally, if the ritual or funeral is conducted in a religious manner that differs from the griever’s beliefs, this can detract from the experience as well.
3.The problem with assigning labels to grievers is that the grievers may then develop a sense of identity surrounding the loss, rather than integrate their feelings and move on from it. For example, “survivor” is a term typically used in a context of loss and bereavement, and while it is intellectually accurate it causes the griever to constantly revisit the circumstances of his or her loss. The griever may get caught up in defining himself and his pain, rather than in completing his unfinished business (James and Freidman, 2009). We might also include the word “veteran” in this discussion, as the word basically means “once a soldier always a soldier”; depending upon the solider’s experience of military service, this could encourage an identity forever defined by trauma and warfare, and any attempts to revise that definition to be perceived as disloyal or dishonorable.
Additionally, while loss-specific self-help groups can be advantageous in the short term, in the long term, their infrastructures can become too rigid and potentially ostracizing. For example, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) requires an admission of helplessness and the acceptance of a higher power (Jung, 2001; Maisel and Raeburn, 2008; Matthews and Clark, 1998). But what about the incurable atheist? Grievers are already segregated in our society. Defining identity by circumstance only serves to further isolate them, which impedes long-term solutions.
What happens to us spiritually when we grieve?
James and Friedman (2009) assert there are two distinct possibilities following loss: 1) regardless of the nature of the loss, your spiritual or religious faith is undamaged,