Solace and immortality: Bereaved parents' continuing bond with their children
- 1 July 1993
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Death Studies
- Vol. 17 (4) , 343-368
- https://doi.org/10.1080/07481189308252630
Abstract
How do bereaved parents find solace in the face of irreparable loss? The essay grows out of a 10-year ethnographic study of a chapter of the Compassionate Friends, a self-help group. A recurring pattern is that long-term solace is intertwined with parents' continuing interaction with the inner representation of their dead child. The essay examines the nature of solace, reviews literature on inner representations of the dead, examines ways parents find solace connected with interaction with the inner representation, explores the shared inner representation as a significant element in social support, discusses solace in terms of the psychosocial meaning of immortality, and draws implications for clinicians.Keywords
This publication has 13 references indexed in Scilit:
- Otto and Freud on the Uncanny and BeyondJournal of the American Academy of Religion, 1989
- Parental Loss in ChildhoodArchives of General Psychiatry, 1988
- John Bowlby'S Model of Grief and the Problem of IdentificationOMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 1988
- Sexual Intimacy and Replacement Children after the Death of a ChildOMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 1985
- Dealing with Object LossThe Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 1984
- Eliciting Mystical States of Consciousness with Semistructured Nature ExperiencesJournal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1977
- The replacement child?A developmental tragedy: Some preliminary commentsChild Psychiatry and Human Development, 1976
- Parenthood as a Developmental PhaseJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 1975
- ON REPLACING A CHILDJournal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 1964
- Parenthood As A Developmental Phase: A Contribution to the Libido TheoryJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 1959