ABSTRACT
To craft a response to the loss of a loved one, you need some tools and you need raw materials to work with. In grief psychology, it was long thought, as we have seen, that the most important aspects of psychic energy were raw emotions and that the key task was to let these wash over a person, do their damage, and retrieve the debris in their wake. The bereaved person could only be passive in response and allow the stages of grief to take place. The etymological roots of “passive” lie suitably in the concept of suffering.
