ABSTRACT
In our quest as helping professionals to engage the individuals, or perhaps the familial group, we sometimes fail to step back from our work to consider the role that community process might play in the healing equation. In this chapter, we pause to consider one particular “big death,” that of Te Arikinui Te Atai-rangikaahu; the therapeutic role the mainstream media played in print media reporting; and what it means to engage in public mourning rituals, even from the comfort and privacy of one's home. This case study serves to magnify how public death rituals and mourning are mediated by the print media and the way that participation—actual and vicarious—promotes a sense of unity, or kotahitanga, in the face of rupture, confusion, and loss. In as much as mediated death rituals and mourning stimulate our emotions and sense of loss, they also present a place for our grief to be placed, assessed, and acknowledged.
