The paradoxical nature of the grief experience

This paper develops the thesis that the grief experience attendant to loss by death is a natural phenomenon and that language has been used to obscure its nature as a process. The paradoxical nature of the grief experience refers to an expanded appreciation of its nature which can include a consideration of the survivor's own joy at being alive. A feeling of joy can occur consequent to allowing the more intense grief pain to be exposed and shared. Frequent references from playwrights and other well-known authors herein support the universal recognition of the above. The author has found these thoughtful individuals to constitute an important intellectual network for himself through the years.This paper was originally presented at the International Conference on the Occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of the Department of Basic Psychoanalytic Research and Family Therapy, University of Heidelberg, West Germany, May 17, 1985.Appreciation is expressed to Betty Byfield Paul, L.I.C.S.W., Counseling Associates, Lexington, Massachusetts, for consultation and editorial review.