Cultural, Existential and Phenomenological Dimensions of Grief Experience

This innovative volume examines the phenomenological, existential and cultural dimensions of grief experiences. It draws on perspectives from philosophy, psychology and sociocultural studies to focus on the experiential dimension of grief, moving beyond understanding from a purely mental health and psychiatry perspective. The book considers individual, shared and collective experiences of loss. Chapters explore the intersections between the profound existential experiences of bereavement and how this is mediated by sociocultural norms and practices. It points to new directions for the future conceptualization and study of grief, particularly in the experiential dimension. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary perspectives, this important book will appeal to academics, researchers and students in the fields of death and bereavement studies, wellbeing and mental health, philosophy and phenomenological studies.

Allan Køster is Senior Researcher at the National Center for Grief, Denmark, and Research Fellow at Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark. Ester Holte Kofod is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Psychology at the University of Aalborg, Denmark.

PART 1: Phenomenology and its application to grief and bereavement 1 Grief, melancholy, and depression: an existential phenomenology of reactions to transience 2 What is longing? An existential-phenomenological investigation 3 Grief, commitment and the sense of community 4 Distorted space, unmoving time-aesthetic practices in bereavement 5 Grief and the photograph: a phenomenology of captured time and its resonances with death 6 The interpersonal and social dimensions of emotion regulation in grief PART 2: The normative mediation of experiences of loss 7 Continuing bonds in the cultural, existential, and phenomenological study of grief 8 Poetic representations of parental grief 9 Grieving as relearning the world is inherently social 10 Grief dynamics and gendered expectations on expressions of grief 11 The oughtness of grief: ontological, cultural and existential perspectives 12 From ineffability and cultural taboo to meaning: making sense of sensory and quasi-sensory experiences of deceased loved ones PART 3: Social frameworks of grief 13 Collective grief: mourning rituals, politics and memorial sites 14 "A grief more deep than me"-on ecological grief 15 Finding solace in nature: a protestant/secular sensibility? Index