Grief-An Invitation to Inertia: A Narrative Approach to Working with Grief

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Abstract
Grief is a complex, compelling, and profound life experience that is a normal and healthy response to the death of a significant other. Personal experiences of grief, when juxtaposed against the cultural and health care discourses that see grief as a process that eventually results in a resolution characterized by the absence of grieffeelings, can sponsor constraining and limiting experiences of life after loss. A narrative approach offers one wayfor nurses and other health care professionals to view grief and grief's possible "problem" states. Narrative invites the bereaved into seeing and storying their experiences in a more accepting and facilitative fashion. This article outlines a narrative approach to a particular problem state found in grief: a problem state of inertia. Implicationsforfamily nursing are discussed.
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