ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that beyond revision of thought, meaning is also “made” through deliberate action — by performing intentional, meaningful acts. Besides the horror that someone willfully and violently took life away from another, homicide survivors quickly learn that the dominant social narrative makes the state the surrogate victim and harm done by offenders to victims is handled as if it is harm done by offenders to the state. Populations who are blocked from finding meaning in these ways may use other methods both to counter the incoherence inherent in violent acts and rebuild meaning where little seems to exist. Rynearson has developed a model for retelling violent death that helps the mourner to disengage from the futile search for coherence in the imaginary story of violent dying and build resilience by reconnecting with living memories and experience beyond the event of the dying.
