Grief – The Work of Grief
We must understand the loss of a person from the perspective of relationship: when we become attached to a person, a certain bond arises, a certain relationship and thus, on the intrapsychic level – a certain "Relational Self." This Relational Self differs from the individual Self, although there is a certain similarity. The experience of the individual Self is important in connection with sorrow and separation: in the grieving process, we reorganize ourselves, returning from the Relational Self to the individual Self. If a person in mourning has only limited access to their individual Self, particularly because in the relationship they adapted too much to the deceased, forgetting themselves in the process, they may react not with grieving but with depression.
In the processes of mourning in old age, lamenting the deceased merges with grieving over the final stage of life – with coming to terms with death. However, mourning in old age is always interspersed with islands of gratitude and well-being.
Grieving – Introduction.
We expect love to put an end to our existential loneliness, while the death of a loved one returns us to that loneliness. For a time, we lose the fundamental feeling of security in our lives. Through the grieving process, we can restore safety to our lives.
We humans are overcome by grief when we have lost or are at risk of losing a person close to us or a certain object that had or still has special value for our lives. Associated with this feeling of grief are feelings of sorrow, fear, anger, love, guilt, and so on. By accepting these various feelings, we enter the process of grieving, a certain evolutionary process through which we slowly – and very painfully – learn to accept the loss and re-engage with life without the person we have lost, without the lost good object, but with everything that this person awakened in us, that this object breathed into us, and which we must by no means renounce.
For our physical and mental well-being, it is important that we do not hide from the grieving processes. Often a concomitant or even primary trigger of depressive illnesses and/or somatic ailments is un-mourned losses – whether because grief is dismissed as a certain "weakness," and so people, minimizing the impact of fate's blows, try to continue organizing their own lives, or because losses are not considered worthy of mourning, such as the loss of a partner through separation or divorce.
Every separation process means the loss of a person who was very important to our lives, but also the loss of hopes that were tied to that person, forcing us to substantially change our own self-perception. An important transitional phase occurs in life, to which an identity crisis is mostly added, one that must be rethought, and moreover alone, without the deceased person, without the partner from whom one has separated. We are usually not very well prepared for such life changes, combined with a new self-perception and acceptance of the past. This is precisely why the grieving process is necessary.
Loss of Important Relationships
The process and work of grieving should be considered in the context of the relationship from which we must free ourselves due to the loss. When we build intense relationships with a certain person, we grow together with them, but in these relationships we also grow ourselves.
This is why grieving people say that in such moments they feel torn in two, feel like a bleeding wound, feel uprooted. The process of this mutual growth is suddenly interrupted by death and completely changes your entire life – you no longer understand yourself, you no longer understand the world, you feel alien to both yourself and the surrounding world. We fall into an identity crisis where we must re-examine our individual Self. In the course of grief work, we reorganize ourselves, returning from our Relational Self to the individual Self: that is, we must remember ourselves as individuals again, and also rediscover our individual connection to the surrounding world. Loss affects our entire life, especially when it comes to the loss of a very close person. In the case of older people, the fact is added that they have already lost so many people and are themselves confronting the end of their own lives – no small challenge.
Separating the Individual Self from the Relational Self
When we lose a person, we lose a relationship important to us, which has a history that, as we both hoped, would have its continuation in the future, a story that can be shared together in memories, a future that can be jointly envisioned and realized, or at least so you think. When we lose someone with whom we had a close relationship, we lose our Relational Self.
The Relational Self is the Self that arises between both, the internalization of the dynamics of experienced, committed relationships. With it is associated the gradual mutual enlivening of parts of our personalities. The Relational Self is dynamic, changing both over time and with the relationship. Both partners experience this Relational Self each from their own point of view, even if it is experienced "together." Of course, even in close relationships, there are also parts of the individual Self that the relationship has little or no impact on.
This Relational Self is formed by the living I-Thou relationship, primarily through mutual perception and the associated subtle but important witnessing of the respective identity of the individual: the way the deceased person saw us, the specific way they looked at us – lovingly, kindly, critically, knowingly – no one else looks at us that way. The I-Thou relationship also includes the shared organization of daily life, shared interests, and achievements in the past, present, and future. Such "achievements" can be children, shared projects where both stimulated and inspired each other, challenging each other and, as a result, creating something of their own. In most relationships, things become possible that would be unrealistic to achieve alone – on the other hand, certain possibilities also remain unrealized. Of course, there are also initiatives, projects that are initiated and realized primarily by one person, in which the partner hardly participates. Especially when the partner shows great interest in something that does not interest the other partner. In such cases, their participation consists of not blocking these interests, but perhaps accompanying them benevolently.
The Relational Self allows projections to be maintained for many years without needing to be withdrawn: a man who is convinced that his wife is a miser, and who after her death discovers that he himself is simply a grotesque miser. The same applies to the delegation of responsibilities: whether tacitly or openly, it was agreed who was responsible for what, and so it remained. Only after the death of the "other half" can one feel that in the area traditionally cared for by the partner, one would manage significantly better oneself.
However, on a more unconscious level, the Relational Self includes not only projections and delegations but also personalized properties and processes that originated within the relationship and were formed from it. This aspect of the Relational Self is based on infatuation, in the phase when people see ideal life possibilities in each other and in their possible future – where the vision of the Relational Self originates.
Even if much is idealized, conjectures are made about potential developmental possibilities that can be partially realized through the shared relationship. Of course, in the process of the relationship, certain less positive nuances also come to life and are "squeezed out": a woman who loses trust because she was constantly lied to, and who has become deeply suspicious due to the relationships she experienced. Problematic forms of interaction are certainly also deposited in the Relational Self.
When we lose someone close to us, we not only lose that person, but we also lose our Relational Self, precisely in that it can no longer develop further. From now on, you have to plan the future alone, you can no longer share memories with each other. That exciting "Do you remember...?" disappears. This aspect of shared memories is particularly important for older people: remembering the shared past together, sharing it with one another, you receive confirmation and witnessing of your own identity. Forced memories alone are memories without the motivational impulses from your other half.
We must readjust ourselves from the Relational Self to the individual Self in such a way that what grew within the relationship can be integrated into our own life and our own experience. The natural grieving process enables us to reorganize ourselves in a long-term emotionally significant process of change, where, returning from the Relational Self to the individual Self, we are able – in altered form – to integrate most of what was experienced in the Relational Self into our own lives. This is accompanied by acceptance of the loss; only a certain wistful gratitude remains, permeated with longing for the deceased, which, however, does not hinder rejoicing in life and in the new, perhaps even the opposite – because you are alive, you want to be as alive as possible.
Loss of the Attachment Object
When we lose a person, not only does the Relational Self cease, but we also, with high probability, lose a certain "attachment object," i.e., a person to whom we confidently turned in stressful situations, with whom we shared difficult experiences, from whom we felt strong support. It is entirely possible that there may be different "attachment objects" in our lives; if not, we not only experience loss but also lose the opportunity to talk about this difficult experience with the person with whom we previously shared our deepest problems.
Thus, grieving is a very painful process with a particular life force, which takes a lot of energy and time and forces us to come to terms with ourselves and the interrupted relationship, while at the same time opening up the possibility to re-establish contact with ourselves, break out of routine, and learn much that is new about our behavior in relationships. Grieving takes time, the duration of which depends on the individual's personality, who was lost, at what age, etc. Grieving is an evolutionary process, and evolution takes time.
Grieving – A Solitary Process
Grieving is a process that a person goes through alone. Grieving people are mostly not easy to communicate with: they do not approach others, often appear too demanding because essentially they want only one thing – to have the deceased person back. As a rule, grieving people also lose what connects them to the world: grieving involves a very clear distinction between what is existentially important in life and what is secondary – a grieving person may disregard secondary things. Furthermore, they cease to understand themselves, as well as the world around them, forced to reorient themselves while in a state of crisis. Meanwhile, people around often do not know how they should behave towards the bereaved, sometimes they avoid them as if the experience of loss could somehow infect them. Moreover, it is often simply impossible for the bereaved to please others: sometimes they express their grief too strongly, so they should pull themselves together and cheer up again; sometimes they feel joy – which is entirely possible, and even very desirable in the grieving process – yet they are reproached for not grieving enough.
If they remain without a relationship for a long time, they are accused of turning away from life; if they enter into a relationship – in others' opinion too quickly – then they are quietly slandered, presumably for not truly loving the deceased person. All this only complicates relationships for both sides – both for those who grieve and for those who want to accompany them in their grief. The best way to accompany a grieving person is to be there, to absorb their feelings, to listen to the stories they tell, or to share one's own experiences and stories about the deceased. It is important to stimulate the bereaved to truly retell stories, to invest them with maximum emotion and imagination, in order to be able to relive what they experienced back then. This applies especially to cases where they tell the same stories over and over again. Then they should retell these stories better, with greater imaginative power, and therefore with stronger emotions, which works better when someone listens attentively and interestedly. If experiences are described in a purely informative style, this significantly reduces emotional involvement and negatively affects the ability to process the loss through the narrative element. Often, the only possibility is to absorb the feelings of the grieving person, not wanting to change them. This, however, means that we must endure and accept another person's feelings of grief, fear, anger, despair. Relationships with kind people bring solace during grieving, but deep down, grieving people feel lonely and often do not understand their loss.
The Grieving Process
Observation of people mourning the death of a loved one, as well as the dreams that systematically accompany grieving processes, allows us to describe the typical course of the grieving process.
Such a grieving process can be transferred, with minor modifications that need to be described in each specific case, to other forms of loss, including divorce, separation from grown children, or the diagnosis of potentially life-threatening illnesses.
Of course, each person has their own specific manner of dealing with separation and grief. When grieving, a person already has behind them certain experiences and skills for dealing with all the difficulties that occurred in their life long before the loss. This personal formula and the type of relationship with the lost person give this essentially typical process an individual character. Equally important is whether a child or an elderly parent, a partner, in early adulthood or in old age, has been lost.
The phases of grieving, as I describe them, constitute an approximate map of this process, which emerged from accompanying many people in mourning, especially considering their dreams, which sometimes not only accompany the process but also stimulate it. These phases are fluid and transition into one another; returns are also observed, but not "relapses," especially to the second phase. This orientation map is evidently intended to help many grieving people better understand their various mental states.
I call the first phase of the grieving process the phase of not wanting to believe it.
Initially, one refuses to believe that the person has really died, is in a state of shock, and tries to escape the feeling of loss by convincing oneself that it is all just a bad dream that will soon end. This first phase, during which people appear frozen, and which can last hours or days, often extending beyond the time frame of funeral processions, transitions into the second phase – the phase of "breaking through of chaotic emotions,"
which often occurs at the sight of the dead body, i.e., when we are no longer able to repress the loss. I call these emotions chaotic because they are intense, and sometimes diverse and contradictory feelings: sorrow, fear, anger, guilt, longing, love, etc. This also includes relatively calm periods – periods of gratitude, or even joy. Painful feelings of guilt are particularly common, which initially are successfully neutralized by the search for and finding of "scapegoats."
It is extremely important that we allow and permit ourselves to express these unpleasant and unsettling feelings in all their contradictoriness. Ambivalent feelings towards the deceased, feelings of hate and feelings of love – all must have the right to exist and be expressed. On the one hand, these ambivalent feelings arise from the relationship – we not only love our loved ones but also have certain problems with them, or are sometimes very disappointed in them. These contradictory feelings do not simply disappear when a person dies, even if it sometimes seems that way. We are ashamed or even afraid of being punished for negative emotions towards the deceased, if we allow them at all, and in turn feel guilty about them. In such cases, most people react with anger, among other things, at being abandoned. Small children show anger when abandoned, and this anger is supposed to bring back the attachment object, or at least deter them from such abandonment in the future. Such anger at the deceased is not uncommon – anger which, of course, becomes dysfunctional since it does not bring the deceased back. Furthermore, most people want the deceased back, but at the same time fear that he or she might return and perhaps take them along. This ambivalence is noticeable in that many of those left behind would not mind bringing the deceased back, but are simultaneously afraid that he might indeed return in some way. In the past, people spoke of so-called little windows for the soul, which were opened when a person died so that the soul could depart, and then quickly closed again to prevent it from returning. Ambivalence also arises because death, and for many also the dead person themselves, always has something ominous about it – something we cannot sort out, and which therefore frightens us. These are just some of the reasons why these ambivalent feelings arise, which are so hard to endure in this emotional chaos.
However, emotional chaos simply must be allowed and, if possible, released outwardly. Feelings of guilt can take on important significance in this situation. We humans find it difficult to perceive certain complex life experiences as something that just happens, that is part of life, "fate." We escape by thinking that someone is "to blame" – this reassures us more or less. Someone died because they smoked too much, supposedly… But the need to blame others can also significantly disrupt our interpersonal relationships: for example, the reproach of an old mother who claims that her husband, the "father," died only because their son visited him again with that horrible hairstyle. Of course, there is something more to this accusation, and the mother most likely disagrees with her son on more complex issues than the state of his hair, but a person certainly does not die because of that. Both in the feeling of guilt, which of course also reveals one's own miscalculations, and in dealing with the feeling of guilt, it becomes most evident how incomprehensible the process of dying, the experience of loss through death, is for people, even if the fact that sooner or later we all must die is intellectually completely clear to us.
The ideal of courage and self-control, although it may seem pleasant to those around, can easily lead to a halt in the grieving process. Only when we truly allow these emotions do we come into contact with the energies that allow us to process the loss, as we know from the 3rd phase of grieving. Moreover, we also contact the emotional core of our Self, the foundation of ourselves, often entering into a stronger connection with ourselves than ever before in our lives.
In this phase, accompanying grieving people is extremely difficult: while feelings of fear and grief are usually easier to bear, feelings of anger and rage tend to meet with a defensive reaction. Furthermore, the environment quickly demands that the bereaved become "reasonable" again. The rule here is that they will master themselves more quickly if they truly have the opportunity to express their emotions, even when encouraged to do so. The feelings of anger and rage are particularly important here, as they prevent grieving people from falling into depression.
During this phase, sleep disorders and loss of appetite are often observed, as well as increased susceptibility to various kinds of infections. A feeling of detachment from the world and other people prevails, as well as a feeling of the complete and final loss of the deceased. People feel fragmented, have the impression that they can no longer rely on themselves, feel devastated. Also, the experience of death as something significant, something weighty that stands out against the banality of everyday life, fades; the external world no longer gives the grieving people the attention and care they had at the time of loss and for some time after.
The phase of breaking through chaotic emotions transitions into the third phase – the phase
Here the work of grieving in the narrower sense already takes place. This phase is characterized by searching for the deceased – certainly in memory, but also in dreams and in conversations with other people. Leading into this process is accompanied by the fact that the thoughts of the grieving are now strongly occupied with the deceased person, as in, "I can't think of anything else but the deceased," and this is precisely what they should do.
Even if they cannot stop thinking about the deceased, they are also always thinking about themselves and about the relationship that existed between them. This is the phase of returning to oneself, to the individual Self, as well as to one's roots, to what is important in one's own life, to what remains – the time has come to say goodbye to the Relational Self.
Thinking about the deceased means remembering the shared history we had with that person. As long as the person with whom we are in a relationship is still alive, that relationship is unfinished, and it can never be emotionally present in our memory in the same way as after that person's death, when that relationship is already imprinted, not subject to change, and when we also have the impression that something that was important to us has come to an end, at least in this world.
In this work with memories, in which telling stories about the shared life with the deceased plays a significant role, it is not only about reconstructing the shared external and internal life, but also about withdrawing projections and seeing where you attributed your own characteristic traits to the deceased, and then in extreme cases hated or loved them in her.
Withdrawing projections means suddenly acknowledging that these traits belong to you yourself. In particular, one often accuses one's partner of pettiness, and when that person dies, one often realizes with horror that the pettiness has not disappeared from one's own life, so this trait is probably something of your own. Some grieving people even feel a bit ashamed when they realize how much they used their loved one as a carrier of their own negative qualities.
Delegations must also be withdrawn: we not only mistakenly see traits of ourselves in others, but even prompt them to espouse them, to develop skills that we ourselves should develop, but which we find particularly difficult or burdensome. Thus, elderly men often discover during their grieving that they completely delegated relationship work to their wives, so now they feel truly inexperienced and insecure in "emotional matters."
Key to progress in grief work is to discover what characteristic traits the person we lost awakened in us. Every person with whom we are in a relationship is capable of touching strings in our soul that only they can awaken and enliven. In romantic relationships, our "other halves" are usually capable of awakening and "nurturing" the most secret corners of our being.
The good or bad that the person revived in us we must not lose, even if our relationship with them has been broken. Thanks to these parts awakened in us, which return to our consciousness through memories, especially of the relationship's genesis, the deceased continue to live in us and in our lives. Such memory work allows us to realize what the Relational Self consisted of, and gradually to feel our own individual Self more and more.
In this third phase, the deceased is sought and found in many different ways, not least in dreams, which convey to the grieving person the feeling that the deceased continues to live with them in another form.
Thanks to these efforts to remember, thanks to the images of the deceased that take on particularly clear contours in memories, new relationships arise with the person who no longer belongs to the concrete everyday world, with whom it is only possible to share this everyday life in an extremely limited way. A rapprochement with the deceased occurs again. Often at the beginning of this phase, idealization of the deceased occurs. In this way, the grieving person also idealizes themselves – a process often necessary to have a sufficiently stable self-esteem to be able to process the loss. Moreover, this idealization embodies the vision of an ideal relationship, how it should have been if there were not another person whose wishes also needed to be considered. This knowledge of the deepest desires in a relationship is very important for shaping the future. The harmony with the deceased that results from idealization rarely lasts long; in everyday life, their ruthless absence, their daily absence is felt again and again; sexual needs and needs for tenderness tirelessly remind one of the specific person who is no longer there, even if in imagination they are present all too strongly. The so-called crisis of rapprochement occurs, which ultimately leads to separation. It is precisely at such moments that the experience of loss becomes overwhelming again, and the grieving are again flooded with chaotic feelings that erupt. Ambivalent feelings towards the deceased awaken again. If there is still considerable anger and hatred towards the deceased, it makes sense to express them in an open letter to the deceased and try to restore a certain justice. During such memory work, in which feelings of loss are repeatedly reactivated, feelings that correspond to the specific loss, the internal attitude towards the deceased can change, as can the memory of the deceased person themselves. The deceased person themselves is not lost; indeed, they become part of our lives in a very integral way, but the mourner returns to life, in some cases even entering into new relationships.
Now the loss has been accepted, the separation accomplished. A complex psychological process of extremely strong intensification and internalization of the memory of the deceased comes to an end, including what was possible in the relationship, and at the same time the release of the deceased person, who can now go. The grieving person reorganizes from the Relational Self into their own individual Self. The pain for the deceased can and must now also be sacrificed. Sometimes it happens that mental or even physical pain takes the place of the deceased. If one sacrifices the pain, such people reason, one might forget the deceased. Often in such cases, dreams occur in which caution is given not to remain faithful to the deceased, but to continue living.
If the loss is accepted, the person begins to understand themselves as someone who, although having suffered a loss, is capable of living for themselves again. Memories of life with the deceased will surface again and again, already part of this new life, but they will no longer have a dominating power. Feelings of gratitude may arise for the segment of life's path that was traveled together with the deceased, for what they awakened in us, sometimes also feelings of regret that too little was extracted from the relationship, that too much was put off for a later moment that no longer exists, that too many unresolved issues remain, that we did not let each other into our lives enough.
Thus, the transition to the fourth phase occurs – the phase of a new relationship to oneself and the world.
Quite often this phase begins with a dream where the grieving person leaves a therapeutic bath, sometimes still with crutches, but with a vivid feeling of genuine recovery. Or spring comes in a dream, and the dreamer rejoices at the flowers pushing up through the ground.
People who have experienced loss begin to greatly value relationships. When they enter into new relationships after the mourned loss, it is accompanied by contradictory feelings: on the one hand, there is a desire to open up completely to the other person, because there is an awareness that relationships are not eternal and can be broken at any moment; on the other hand, there is also a fear of fully committing to these relationships, because the price is now known – the experience of loss, grief.
However, grieving people also learn to mourn their grief, coming to realize that grieving is hard work, which, however, does not kill us but rather establishes a more conscious contact with ourselves, as well as a connection with new aspects we have discovered in ourselves. Through grieving also comes awareness of the resource to which the respective person can turn: initially more in daily routine, when one realizes how to cope in difficult times and begins to feel somewhat better afterward, consciously continuing to employ these methods of self-regulation, actively applying and refining them. Moreover, people in the grieving process can discover what truly carries them through life – in such moments, one feels one's own basic resources. In any case, through the process of grief, the awareness of death becomes an aspect of self-awareness – an important aspect that contributes to the stabilization of self-consciousness.
The grieving process, especially with the allowance of various strong emotions and feelings, and the release through them of what revives the lost within our soul, and thus also the conscious return to – at such moments genuine – individual Self represents a certain conceptual model. Such a model makes it possible to let go of something in a way that allows one to find one's own identity – to become more confident despite the pain, to feel a closer connection to one's own emotions, and as a result, to feel more protected, more like oneself.
Having learned to grieve, we can let go more in everyday life, we can coexist better, saying goodbye to someone. And having learned to let go more in everyday life, we are better able to cope with the experience of death.
Funeral Ritual
People need rituals when they are confronted with overwhelming emotions. Therefore, funeral rituals are very important and help to cope with grief. Our traditional rituals reflect the grieving process: people gather – we need the warmth of other people in the face of the coldness of death. The ritual, framed by music, the selection of which is usually connected to the deceased, touches our feelings. We talk about the deceased, letting them "resurrect" once more, paying them tribute and describing their lives in a biographical style in as vivid tones as possible. Such a visualized recollection evokes in the listeners their own memories and feelings accordingly. Then, the procession to the burial site. At the grave, one finally says goodbye to the body. Then they gather at the table and perhaps even take comfort in life. Through chaotic emotions, various, including sorrowful memories, through the final separation from the deceased, people regain their taste for life. Based on this, still quite widespread in Christian culture, funeral ritual, we can speak of a certain model of the grieving process: a process that is unconsciously anticipated. This means that people unconsciously already "know" that with the help of grieving, they can return to the path of life.
What Makes Grieving Particularly Difficult
Grieving is a process that, if undisturbed, proceeds with a certain systematicity. However, today we, the modern generation, find it difficult to give in to these emotions, which is a necessary condition for a quality grieving process, primarily because grieving is an extremely lengthy process and takes a lot of time: during grief, one needs to put one's life on hold, think about oneself and the relationship that has ended, and emotionally revive them in memory, only to then let them go again.
Some aspects of grieving can be practiced with others, for example in a grief group, where one can learn what others feel, how they cope with grief, what resources they master. One can also learn from them. Since romantic relationships are always entirely private, a large part of the memory work will have to be done alone with oneself. I deliberately choose the term "work," because for me this is about emotionally exhausting activity.
But not all people can grieve. Some people fall into depression due to loss, others become ill, or simply cannot begin to grieve.
In the grieving process, a person reorganizes themselves from the Relational Self to their individual Self. However, this presupposes that people have sufficient "own Self" to be able to go through the grieving process. People who always look to others, who do not know what they feel, what they want in life, what their plans, desires are, have lived their own Self too little. And now, when the person who to some extent even substituted for their own Self dies, consciously or less consciously determining how they should live, think, feel, they fall into depression. In this case, psychotherapeutic help is necessary: it is no longer just about processing the loss, but also about rethinking one's own Self. There are people who initially avoid grief by identifying with the deceased, for example, by "adopting" their symptoms: for example, a 35-year-old son develops a mysterious cough that does not let him grieve because, as he says, it gives him no peace. His father died several weeks ago from lung cancer, which was accompanied by severe coughing and choking fits.
Sometimes certain objects take the place of the deceased. For us humans, it is common to have and carefully keep mementos of our deceased loved ones. Usually, these mementos are very important at the beginning of the grieving period, after which they lose their significance over the years. Such objects, for example, a grandfather's old watch, remind us of the deceased. However, sometimes these objects can also take the place of the deceased. One woman kept the pillow on which her husband died for years, never washing it. Taking it out, she felt as if she were taking out her husband; locking it in a chest, she felt as if she were locking him away. She was only surprised that she could not get over the loss, even though she had "fixed everything so well" and felt almost no grief. The pillow, which she could of course control and do with as she pleased, had taken the place of the deceased, over whom she, like all the living, no longer had control. However, this did not allow the deceased to simply go away; he still remained here, with her, disturbing her with his magical presence – albeit under her control. Thus, she could not find her way to the feelings of loss. Such cases require therapeutic support.
Associated with grief, however, are not only such striking forms of difficulty but also everyday problems, including the attempt to escape from these feelings and thoughts of death through daily chores – simply because we do not understand well enough how to deal with transitional phases in life – and the loss of a loved one precisely entails such a forced transitional phase – or because we think it is better to avoid such difficult feelings, which would ultimately lead us to ourselves, or that they are altogether inappropriate in such cases. However, by avoiding grief in this way, life will be covered layer by layer with a gray veil, because you will constantly lose something without being able to keep anything in this life.
Instead, the grieving process is an attempt to come to terms with the loss and yet preserve as much as possible in memories and within oneself the memory of the completed relationship, to live on with this and to realize the impact of this bond on one's own essence and one's own life, and precisely on the basis of this experience to re-engage intensively with life, because after grieving comes the realization that we all have only this one life.
Aspects of Grieving in Old Age
The experience of loss in old age, especially when a couple has spent many years together, is of great importance for the life feeling of the surviving partner. "I thought I couldn't go on living without my wife," says an 85-year-old man. But he continued to live, allowing life to offer him new challenges. Nevertheless, we all know the phenomenon of "dying shortly after the death of a loved one."
As different as people are, as differently do they age; as different as the relationships that come to an end are, as different are the grieving processes. There are widows who fully live their own lives once more, wanting to find out who they really are. This is vividly depicted in Bertolt Brecht's "The Unseemly Old Lady." This story is also an example of how much the family does not want to finally let the mother determine her own life.
Others withdraw from life, and this worries their children – they are unsettled by the grief over which they have little influence. There are those who, after what they consider a "proper period of mourning," anxiously ask whether their mother might not be depressed – she is not interested in new relationships, so she apparently has not emerged from the grieving process. But why should the mother be interested in new relationships? Some people turn their faces back to the world, allowing it to speak to them, opening themselves to people they happen to meet; others actively seek new relationships: a woman over 90, who already sees poorly, feels lonely, asks students to read aloud to her, discusses what they read with them, and pays them for the time they spend with her; she experiences this time as a kind of gift. These are all ways to reconnect with the world – and there are many others.
Of course, older people can react to loss with depression, and in such a case should receive, among other things, psychotherapeutic help. C. G. Jung held the opinion – which is also the consensus in Jungian psychotherapy – that people are capable of maturing right up to their death within the framework of the so-called individuation process. The individuation process is an evolutionary process that lasts throughout a person's life, through which they increasingly find themselves, thus realizing the potentials within them that they could not realize earlier. This process can also take on central importance in the treatment of depressed people, helping them find a way out of depression by developing still important parts of their personality, their own Self.
However, in principle, I believe that older people have the right to mourn the deceased as they see fit. It becomes problematic when these elderly people isolate themselves because they no longer expose their sensitive elements to the outside world, because they themselves have already partially "died" along with their deceased partner, living somewhere between heaven and earth and emotionally renouncing the "living."
Elderly people, especially the very old, become lonely not only because of unresolved grieving processes but also because many of their peers have already died, and others, due to impairments of cognitive and emotional functions, are "no longer what they used to be." Such experiences cause fear and loneliness.
The very old often complain about emotional and social loneliness, slightly less so those who manage to establish a network of connections with those younger than themselves. Older people rejoice in these relationships but still long for relationships with their peers, with whom they could share similar life experiences.
Older people generally feel better when, after a significant loss, they find someone they can trust and rely on when things are difficult. In our context, this means that one of the most important tasks in the grieving process is to find at least one new attachment object. Perhaps such a person already belonged to the circle of connections but was not as important as the partner as the primary attachment object. Trusting a new person and attaching to them, even knowing that they too can die, takes courage and succeeds when one can and must rely on them.
For their part, older people also try to support this new attachment object as best they can. However, as studies show, many evidently lack tenderness, and it is precisely tenderness that people striving to improve their quality of life desire.
In general, it is interesting to talk to people about how they cope with their loneliness. Most of them do not complain, or only partially, about being lonely, instead finding strategies to deal with it. Toyo Shibata, a 100-year-old woman, describes it in a poem as if she catches the sunbeams penetrating through the gap in the door and rubs them on her face, imaginatively connecting the warmth of these rays with the warmth of her mother. This is precisely the necessary power of imagination that connects present life with the past, warmth with warmth. With age, this power does not weaken but becomes a wonderful gift for feeling alive. This gift can be trained and enjoyed by creating retrospective reviews of one's own life.
Life Review
Helpful in grieving processes, but also in emotional contacts with other people to somewhat counteract the feeling of loneliness, can be small groups of older people in which they work on a retrospective review of their own lives. This does not necessarily have to be in the form of therapy, which is also recommended, but rather in the format of a small group of people who meet over a certain period of time to talk to each other about important situations from their past lives. Within the framework of life review, as I recommend it, work is done on specific topics: which situations in my life do I remember, can I still clearly imagine the context where I was overwhelmed with feelings of joyful pride, proud joy? With the help of imagination, these and other situations are brought back as vividly as possible into reality, and they are retold to one another. Working on life review requires considerable imaginative power: if we want to tell something from our youth, for example, what truly interested us when we were 20, we clearly imagine what we looked like, in what contexts we lived then – as close to life as possible. Through this visualization, we imagine the past, reliving the feelings we had back then. Life review is based on our ability to remember, but also on the fact that we can influence our memory, as it is not exact. If we are in a good mood, we will remember joyful situations. They give us a pleasant sense of self-worth and lift our overall mood. This allows us to feel better, we become closer to others, become more approachable, and can also look at our lived life with joyful eyes, leaving situations we regret as they are, without regretting them even more. Yes – that was it. But it was also different. It is advisable to ask about joys, interests, situations in which the person felt alive – this enhances self-esteem and improves life satisfaction.
The goal of life review, which does not follow biographical tracks and in no way claims to be comprehensive, is to see the life we have lived – successful, less successful, regrettable, average – in all its value dimensions. This means reliving in clear contours the story of one's own identity, especially considering that one's strength is waning and one plays an ever smaller role in the lives of others. Such work on life review works well when participants, using the power of their imagination, soulfully tell about their lives, engaging the listeners in their imaginations, provided the listeners listen attentively. The stories told in turn awaken in the listeners their own experiences and memories – everyone becomes involved and animated.
Involuntarily, in such life narratives, grief work also takes place, because many memories concern people who have already died, and also very often the person being mourned at that moment. This is important for unresolved grieving processes, but also for more fundamental processes of dealing with death, and it unites the narrators in the face of death and the transience of life.
And often such stories also awaken gratitude – gratitude towards people who did good to us, even if we can no longer tell them. Such a retrospective method of reviewing one's own life is offered in geriatric facilities – it works well when people can and want to listen to others. Apparently, the need to tell stories is greater among older people than the need to listen. Of course, everyone in such a group gets their own time to speak, but also time to listen to others.
Approaching One's Own Death
Not only the loss of a loved one, but also various other losses in old age make us think about our own death. This also affects the grieving process: parting with a life companion also means, to a certain extent, parting with one's own life. Within the framework of memory work, when an almost 90-year-old woman recalled once more how much she loved to dance with her recently deceased partner, she said thoughtfully, "Ah, it won't be like that anymore – it will never be like that again. But at least I had it." And it wasn't just about dancing – she allowed herself to be convinced that she could still do it, albeit with certain limitations; something else was felt – how she said goodbye with gratitude and wistfulness to a certain aspect of her active life. Gradual reconciliation with death is one of the important evolutionary tasks in old age, which is particularly well described in a poem by Rudolf Alexander Schröder, from which I will allow myself to quote the last stanza: "I am strange, old, / I have forgotten much, must learn anew. - / It is time: the time has come for friendship / With night and its stars."
Such "friendship" with death involves a more intense emotional experience of joy from special life situations – for example, spring – and memories of some long-past event. This allows one to better see and enjoy the beauty of nature, the beauty of life: such enjoyment, apparently, contrasts sharply with becoming smaller and smaller and thinking about the inevitability of the end.
Grief over loss, and thus dealing with the loss of security and belonging, sorrow over the inevitable loss of skills and, ultimately, life, and rejoicing in the beauty and still-present feelings of vitality in the surrounding world, are intertwined. Of course, grief is a problem, but it is increasingly – at least compared to past years – experienced with a certain amount of calm and interspersed with islands of gratitude and well-being. A number of studies resonate with this, showing that despite everything, "in old age, positive feelings prevail over negative ones."
Prof. Dr. Verena Kast
kast@swissonline.ch
About the author: Verena Kast (born 1943) is a professor of psychology and practicing psychotherapist, a lecturer and training analyst at the Jung Institute in Zurich.
She studied philosophy, literature, and psychology. She earned her doctorate in analytical psychology. Since 2014, she has been president of the C.G. Jung Institute in Küsnacht, Zurich. She is the author of over 80 books, including bestsellers: "Fathers-Daughters, Mothers-Sons," "Grieving," "Sisyphus," "Couples."
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Translation from German: Konstantyn Polishchuk.
Professional editing: Olha Kasyanenko, Inna Kyryliuk, Hanna Mitsuk, Olena Pozdieieva, Serhii Tekliuk, Yuliia Sharipova.
Literary editor: Sofiia Korn.