That expressive writing can be a beneficial response to trauma or grief is well-established in the literature. Grief research also shows that the majority of people are resilient in the face of the death of loved ones. That said, traditional rituals around loss are no longer ubiquitous, well-known phase models of bereavement are contested, and ‘unfinished business’ can create difficulties in the face of loss. Increasingly, bereavement scholars speak of a need for individuals in western society to make meaning of their own grief through narrative construction, though little is said about what constitutes a beneficial story. The author takes an autoethnographic approach to write and reflect on her spouse’s illness and death and explores through a multi-voiced expressive dialogue a personal issue around her bereavement. In an analysis of her writing, using Dialogical Self Theory, she identifies markers which may be indicative of the development of a beneficially constructed narrative. The model of writing-for-transformation is used to describe the overall intent of the process, while the dialogical markers show how progress may be identified. Reinekke Lengelle (2020) Writing the Self and Bereavement: Dialogical Means and Markers of Moving Through Grief, Life Writing, 17:1, 103-122, DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2020.1710796
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The unexpected death of a child is one of the most challenging losses as it fractures survivors’ sense of parenthood and other layers of identity. Given that not all the bereaved parents who have need for support respond well to available treatments and that many have little access to further intervention or follow-up over time, online interventions featuring therapeutic writing and peer support have strong potential. In this article we explore how a group of bereaved mothers experienced the process of participating in an online course in therapeutic writing for the integration of grief. Our research questions were: How do parents who have lost a child experience being part of an online course in therapeutic writing? What are the perceived benefits and challenges of writing in processing their grief? We followed an existential phenomenological approach and analyzed fieldwork notes (n = 13), qualitative data from the application and assessment surveys (n = 35; n = 21), excerpts from the journals of some participants (n = 3), and email correspondence with some participants (n = 5). We categorized the results in three meaning units: (1) where does my story begin? The “both and” of their silent chaos; (2) standing on the middle line: a pregnancy that does not end; (3) closures and openings: “careful optimism” and the need for community support. Participants experienced writing as an opportunity for self-exploration regarding their identities and their emotional world, as well as a means to develop and strengthen a bond with their children. They also experienced a sense of belonging, validation, and acceptance in the online group in a way that helped them make sense of their suffering. Online writing courses could be of benefit for bereaved parents who are grieving the unexpected death of a child, but do not replace other interventions such as psychotherapy. In addition to trauma and attachment informed models of grief, identity informed models with a developmental focus might enhance the impact of both low-threshold community interventions and more intensive clinical ones. Further studies and theoretical development in the area are needed, addressing dialogical notions such as the multivoicedness of the self. Lehmann OV, Neimeyer RA, Thimm J, Hjeltnes A, Lengelle R and Kalstad TG (2022) Experiences of Norwegian Mothers Attending an Online Course of Therapeutic Writing Following the Unexpected Death of a Child. Front. Psychol. 12:809848. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.809848
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Young widowhood, conceptualized as the loss of one’s spouse before the age of 50, is a profoundly painful and distressing loss (Den Elzen, 2017, 2018). The literature on young widowhood shows the death of a partner generally causes a fragmentation of the self, as it violates expectations of the normal life cycle, namely growing old together (Haase and Johnston, 2012; Levinson, 1997). Premature loss of one’s spouse tends to be experienced by the surviving partner as distressing or traumatizing, such as having witnessed their suffering in illness or through accident (Den Elzen, 2018) or in struggling with unfinished business (Holland et al, 2020). Whilst post-traumatic stress is well-known and has been widely researched across various disciplines, the concept of post-traumatic growth is much newer and by contrast has received less attention. PTG was introduced as a scholarly concept by Tedeschi and Calhoun in the mid-1990s and is defined as a positive psychological change as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life events (2004). Calhoun and Tedeschi’s notion of PTG has been backed by a recent systematic review. In the first meta-analysis of moderate-to-high PTG, Wu et al. found that of the 10,181 subjects, about 50% experienced PTG (2019). They also reported that women, young people and victims of trauma experienced higher levels of PTG than men, the elderly and those who experienced indirect trauma. PTG has attracted some controversy, with some researchers questioning its scientific validity (Jayawickreme and Blackie, 2014). Others caution against the minimization of people’s suffering. Hayward is a trauma counsellor who advises approaching PTG carefully, highlighting that if it is introduced with clients too early it can "often be construed as minimizing someone's pain and suffering and minimizing the impact of the loss" (cited in Collier, 2016, n.p.). In addressing the critique of PTG, Calhoun and Tedeschi (2006) emphasize that the focus on investigating positive psychological change following trauma does not deny the common and well-documented negative psychological responses and distress following severe life stresses: “Negative events tend to produce, for most persons, consequences that are negative” (p.4). They argue however, and their research supports this finding, that for many people distressful events can foster positive psychological changes. We view PTG as a possibility following (profound) loss, and emphasize that PTG may continue to co-exist with painful and/or unresolved emotions regarding the loss itself. We conceptualize PTG as a continuum and not as an either/or binary with grief. Further, we wish to highlight that PTG is a highly individual process that depends on many factors, and we are not suggesting that the absence of PTG is to be seen as a failure. This chapter intends to contribute to the study of PTG through a person-centered approach. The most used method to assess PTG is the 21-item posttraumatic growth inventory developed by Calhoun and Tedeschi in 1996 (Jayawickreme & Blackie, 2014). Self-reported posttraumatic growth has been the foundation of PTG research, which has aimed to identify to what extent PTG evokes improved psychological and physical health. In discussing our own creative narrative processes of PTG, our practice-led-research lens aims to contribute to research on how PTG might be fostered. We propose a Writing-for-wellbeing approach in this context and explore what it offered us both as writers and widows and what it might offer the field of Writing-for-wellbeing and by extension clinical and scholarly practice.
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