A Review of On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss

Book reviewed in this article: Elizabeth Kübler‐Ross and David Kessler (2005). On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss.     

Meaning and learning: Response to Moerk

In response to Moerk (1986, Developmental Review, 6, 365–385) the following points are discussed: (a) Semantic and conceptual development must be conceived in terms of systems that undergo developmental change, (b) Objects are viewed as embedded in events and as being conceptualized first within a syntagmatic and later a paradigmatic system, (c) While the nature of the input to the child is important, its effects cannot be considered independently of the state of the child's conceptual and linguistic system. (d) The neurological considerations discussed by Moerk are not relevant to the particular developmental issues discussed in my book.     

From Interpretation to Commentary: Truth and Meaning in Psychotherapy

Some of the epistemological consequences of adopting the narrative point of view in psychotherapy are explored. Attempts to apply principles and norms from the philosophy of science to psychotherapy are criticized, since psychotherapy is not a science, but a technique. In addition, those models, related to the acquisition of knowledge, that consider that knowledge could increase by apposition without transforming the subject who is knowing are discussed. Natural science and hermeneutic metaphors are not suitable for understanding the practice of psychotherapy. Traditionally, the interpretation of symptoms or problems to solve has been the main instrument in therapy. In other words, the therapist tries to look for the truth hidden under the symptom, which then becomes a sign. Our proposition is to substitute these metaphors for the paradigm of text commentary. Text commentary, instead of providing a unique truth, provides a set of meanings suggested by a commentary. Characteristics that allow one to distinguish a good and a bad commentary, and implications of the paradigm described for the training of psychotherapists, are discussed.     

Intersubjectivity as Co-phenomenology: From the Holism of Meaning to the Being-in-the-world-with-others

I outline in this paper a pragmatical approach to meaning. Meaning is defined as a phenomenologically experienced construal. As such, it is a dynamic object whose first evidence comes from the first person rather than the third one. At the same time, the approach assumes that meaning is not an individual creation, but rather an intersubjective one. Origins of meaning are also to be founded not ‘in the head’ of a cognitive system or subject, but in the intersubjective space contingently formed between a subject (S), an other (O) and a common object (R), which they talk about. Approaching this minimal communicative situation therefore requires realizing that the phenomenological dimension is always implied in any intersubjective encounter. The observed synchronized co-feeling among subjects, upon which language comprehension takes place, I call ‘co-phenomenology’. When analyzed in this way, intersubjectivity shows at the same time its social, phenomenological and biological dimensions.

From Melancholia to Meaning How to Live the Past in the Present

Freud's theory of melancholia has lately experienced a renaissance among those interested in the creative potentialities of the psyche. In this essay, I consider the ways in which melancholia can contribute to the actualization of these potentialities by preparing the ground in which inspiration can later take root. I also outline the circumstances in which the melancholy subject's refusal to abandon its lost objects represents an entirely valid response to loss. At the same time, I propose that if the subject is to develop an affirmative and imaginatively supple relationship to its psychic history, it must in the end move from melancholia to meaning production. Insofar as melancholia signals the psyche's inability or stubborn unwillingness to move forward, its powers by necessity remain dormant until the subject is able to exchange its sadness for the versatile meaning-making capacities of the signifier. I moreover argue that it is only when the subject is able to transcend its melancholia enough to begin to desire new objects that it can develop loving and responsible relationships with others—that it can begin to welcome others in their own terms rather than reducing them to its own narcissistic image.     

Addressing Spiritual Issues From a Cultural Perspective: The Case of the Grieving Filipino Boy

This article examines the ways that spiritual beliefs and traditions associated with the Filipino culture influenced an 11-year-old boy's efforts to cope with the death of his mother. Implications for attending to clients' spiritual beliefs are discussed.     

Grief Therapy and the Reconstruction of Meaning: From Principles to Practice

Viewed from a constructivist perspective, grieving is a process of reconstructing a world of meaning that has been challenged by loss. Although most people successfully navigate bereavement and retain or return to pre-loss levels of functioning, a significant proportion struggle with protracted grief, and are unable to find meaning in the wake of an unsought transition. For these individuals, constructivist therapists have a number of strategies at their disposal that foster meaning making and help clients reestablish a coherent self-narrative that integrates the loss, while also permitting their life story to move forward along new lines. After reviewing theory and evidence that scaffolds this constructivist conceptualization, this article draws on excerpts of therapy with two bereaved clients to illustrate how narrative retelling, therapeutic writing, a focus on metaphorical language, and the use of visualization can all be viable strategies in helping individuals reconstruct meaning in the wake of bereavement.     

The Meaning of the Sperm Donor for Heterosexual Couples: Confirming the Position of the Father

In the literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the meaning of donor involvement in the intimate couple dyad. The current study aimed to enrich our understanding of couples' meaning‐making regarding the anonymous sperm donor and how they dealt with the donor involvement. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with nine couples, who had at least one child conceived through sperm donation. Our thematic analysis showed that the donor conception was seen as a different path to create a normal family. Once the family was formed, most couples avoided talking about the donor because it was perceived as disrupting men's growing confidence in their position as father. Participants tried to confirm the position of the father to protect the family relationships. Uncertainties about how they were perceived as parents showed the continuing dominance of genetic ties within our social discourse. Participants also dealt with reminders of the donor in their daily life. Overall, they tried to manage the space taken up by the donor and to protect the position of the father. We relate our findings to literature on topic avoidance and shared obliviousness in families. For counseling practice, it could be useful to explore couples' meaning‐making about the donor as this seemed to serve family functioning.     

Feelings of Loss in Response to Divorce: Assessment and Intervention

This article presents a cognitively based model to use as a basis for assessment and intervention strategies for assisting individuals to cope with feelings of loss they may experience in response to divorce.     

Cybermourning: Grief in Flux From Object Loss to Collective Immortality

This essay examines features of cyberreality that are reconfiguring loss and mourning. In turn, it queries a transformation in the nature of object loss that is taking place on the Internet. As we move from a reality based on the acceptance of loss and limit to one of infinite access, concrete losses may be less necessary to mourning than forms of access that propel the object's capacity for collective re-use toward immortality. If we focus too intently on loss at the level of the individual and the group, we will surely overlook how cyberspace is transforming loss into a collective event. Clinical examples illustrate how the burden of loss is increasingly mitigated by mourning's sudden twin: cybermourning.     

From Destruktion to Deconstruction: A Response to Moran

Abstract

As a response to Moran’s (1994) recommendation that Heidegger’s Destruktion be extensively elaborated and critiqued, this paper suggests a way in which Heidegger’s thinking can be more clearly understood as a search for how better to ‘say’ the destruction. By briefly tracing how Heidegger’s thinking on the Destruktion repeatedly turns against itself throughout his writings, it is demonstrated that Heidegger does indeed revise the notion by abandoning the term in his later writing; to replace it first with the concept of ‘overcoming’, and subsequently with the notion of Verwindung. This self-critical reworking of the Destruktion is evident in his turning towards these concepts; which is taken up by Derrida’s deconstruction in its simultaneous turning towards and away from Heidegger’s Destruktion.     

Merleau-Ponty and the Advent of Meaning: From Consummate Reciprocity to Ambiguous Reversibility

The three themes of perception, expression, and history proved to be significant and consistent concerns of Merleau-Ponty from his earliest to his latest writings. In turn, Merleau-Ponty was concerned to discover and show how meaning emerged within the context of each of these themes. My main goal in this essay will be to trace ways that Merleau-Ponty conceived of this emergence, and to how his conceptions underwent increasing sophistication from his earlier to later writings. In section I, I show how a kind of perceptual meaning arises out of an exchange between subject and object, perceived and perceived, and the visible and invisible. In section II, I show how expressive meaning arises out of an exchange between the spoken and speaking word, and the synchronic and diachronic registers of language. In these sections, I also point out that what starts roughly as binary dialogue (characterized by consummate reciprocity) between these matrices of meaning evolves into a more ambiguous interplay (characterized by such later ontological notions as invisibility, reversibility, and the flesh). In section III, I show how meaning arises in history out of an ambiguous interplay between past and present, ideas and institutions, the collective and individual, and the pre-determined and the free; and I suggest ways Merleau-Ponty might have integrated earlier scattered thoughts about meaning's emergence in history with his later ontology, had his work in these directions not been cut short.     

From Social Construction to Relational Construction: Practices from the Edge

In this paper, I talk about Ken Gergen??s influence in the communication discipline. Beginning with his ground-breaking publications in the 1970??s (Gergen 1973, 1978), we see him challenging the taken for granted separation of theory and practice, scholar and practitioner. One of Ken??s many contributions?Cregardless of disciplinary domain?Chas been the nurturing of forms of practice being developed by creative and innovative practitioners and young scholars alike. There are several key resources that are woven throughout Ken??s work that have continued to inspire and influence practitioners working in mental health, healthcare, organizations, schools, communities, and peace building endeavors. The most central of these resources include (1) centering relational processes which, in turn, generate the expansion of (2) collaborative, participatory practices that embrace alternative worldviews through a (3) a reflexive stance. Ken has challenged himself and all of us to stay on the edge because it is on the edge that new relational possibilities can be created. He has invited us to embrace the edge as the place of great comfort; comfort in knowing that there will always be possibilities for forging new ways of making meaning together.