ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 examines complex psychological processes that make it challenging to accept the reality of loss. Though most people eventually manage to look death square in the face, some individuals continue to avoid acknowledging the full breadth of their loss, giving way to manifestations of complicated bereavement, including physical illness, poor adaptation to life after a death, social withdrawal, and chronic grief. Cultural rituals that confirm death and absence are considered, including the use of storytelling and eulogies, fantasy coffins in Ghana, Hindu sraddha rituals that revolve around cremation, the Irish wake, and Tibetan sky burials. The chapter then pivots to a discussion of how personal grief rituals can be developed to help the bereaved individual confirm absence in a personally meaningful way. Clinical case studies are referenced throughout to exemplify potential approaches. Examples include use of storytelling to fix memories of the dead in the past, having imaginary conversations with the deceased to acknowledge their absence in the here and now, and intentionally searching for and failing to find the deceased where they once were. Lastly, the chapter contemplates how meaningful interactions with the corpse are pivotal in many cultural efforts to confirm absence and release the soul into the afterlife. For those bereaved individuals whose culture does not provide meaningful access to the deceased’s body, personal grief rituals can be designed around abstract representations of the dead that can be symbolically relinquished, often among the elements of nature: fire, water, air, and earth.
