In this paper, I present three ideal typical grief articulations drawn from three historical peri... more In this paper, I present three ideal typical grief articulations drawn from three historical periods: (1) grief as a moral practice in Ancient Greek virtue ethics, (2) grief as an expression of an inner, authentic morality in the Romantic era, and (3) grief as a psychologized and increasingly pathologized phenomenon in modern psychology up to the present attempts to include separate diagnoses for pathological grief in the diagnostic manuals for mental disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; World Health Organization, 2016). The purpose of this presentation is to shed light on current taken-for-granted notions of grief, and, by providing some historical background, challenge prevailing understandings that depict grief as an ahistorical, universal, intra-psychological and (potentially) medical condition that is analytically separate from historical, social, cultural, and religious practices. Informed by a cultural psychological outlook (Brinkmann, 2016; Valsiner, 2014), I argue that the relationship between grieving individuals and their cultures is dialectical, mutually constituting and inherently normative, and hence, that the diagnostic approach to grief as an individual, causal reaction to loss is flawed. On this background, I argue that an acknowledgment of the inherent normativity of grief (as presented by the historical accounts) can potentially inform and enrich contemporary understandings and practices related to bereavement, ultimately to the benefit of people who suffer from grief.
Grief is often conceived in causal or reactive terms, as something that simply strikes people aft... more Grief is often conceived in causal or reactive terms, as something that simply strikes people after a loss. But, on closer scrutiny, there are good reasons to think of grief as a normative phenomenon, which is done or enacted by people, relative to cultural norms. To substantiate the claim that grief should be thought of as normative, we draw upon empirical examples from a qualitative interview study with bereaved parents following infant loss, and analyze how grieving the loss of a small child in our culture is experienced, interpreted, and enacted within a diffuse and ambivalent, yet inescapable, moral framework. Further, we discuss some of the possible consequences for bereaved individuals when navigating the normative landscape of grieving in contemporary Western cultures: A landscape in which suffering is increasingly dealt with in psychiatric and medical terms and understood as an adverse and unnecessary condition to be overcome in order to maximize personal health, happiness, and well-being.
In this essay, I explore the significance of involving personal experiences with loss in my resea... more In this essay, I explore the significance of involving personal experiences with loss in my research on parental bereavement. By intersecting autoethnography and findings from a qualitative interview study with bereaved parents following infant loss, I argue that while popular and professional accounts depict normal grief as a transitory state, parental accounts present grief as a continuing and open-ended relationship with the dead child. In acknowledgment of this, I present fragmentary, non-reifying narratives of the continuing realities of becoming a bereaved parent.
In recent years, human scientists have generalized the so-called hypothesis of the extended mind ... more In recent years, human scientists have generalized the so-called hypothesis of the extended mind to human emotional life. The extended mind hypothesis states that objects within the environment function as a part of the mind and are centrally involved in cognition. Some emotion researchers have argued along these lines that there are bodily extended emotions, and (more controversially) environmentally extended emotions. In this article, we will first briefly introduce the idea of the extended mind and extended emotions before applying it to the emotion of grief specifically. We explain by introducing the notion of a cultural affective niche within which grief is scaffolded and enacted. An affective niche couples the person and the environment and enables the realization of affective states.
In this paper I present three ideal typical grief articulations drawn from three historical perio... more In this paper I present three ideal typical grief articulations drawn from three historical periods: 1) Grief as a moral practice in Ancient Greek virtue ethics, 2) Grief as an expression of an inner, authentic morality in the Romantic era, and, 3) Grief as a psychologized and increasingly pathologized phenomenon in modern psychology up to the present attempts to include separate diagnoses for pathological grief in the diagnostic manuals for mental disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; World Health Organization, 2016). The purpose of this presentation is to shed light on current taken for granted notions of grief, and, by providing some historical background, challenge prevailing understandings that depict grief as an ahistorical, universal, intra-psychological and (potentially) medical condition that is analytically separate from historical, social, cultural and religious practices. Informed by a cultural psychological outlook (Brinkmann, 2016; Valsiner, 2014), I argue that the relationship between grieving individuals and their cultures is dialectical, mutually constituting and inherently normative, and hence, that the diagnostic approach to grief as an individual, causal reaction to loss is flawed. On this background, I argue that an acknowledgement of the inherent normativity of grief (as presented by the historical accounts) can potentially inform and enrich contemporary understandings and practices related to bereavement, ultimately to the benefit of people who suffer from grief.
In this paper, I present three ideal typical grief articulations drawn from three historical peri... more In this paper, I present three ideal typical grief articulations drawn from three historical periods: (1) grief as a moral practice in Ancient Greek virtue ethics, (2) grief as an expression of an inner, authentic morality in the Romantic era, and (3) grief as a psychologized and increasingly pathologized phenomenon in modern psychology up to the present attempts to include separate diagnoses for pathological grief in the diagnostic manuals for mental disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; World Health Organization, 2016). The purpose of this presentation is to shed light on current taken-for-granted notions of grief, and, by providing some historical background, challenge prevailing understandings that depict grief as an ahistorical, universal, intra-psychological and (potentially) medical condition that is analytically separate from historical, social, cultural, and religious practices. Informed by a cultural psychological outlook (Brinkmann, 2016; Valsiner, 2014), I argue that the relationship between grieving individuals and their cultures is dialectical, mutually constituting and inherently normative, and hence, that the diagnostic approach to grief as an individual, causal reaction to loss is flawed. On this background, I argue that an acknowledgment of the inherent normativity of grief (as presented by the historical accounts) can potentially inform and enrich contemporary understandings and practices related to bereavement, ultimately to the benefit of people who suffer from grief.
Grief is often conceived in causal or reactive terms, as something that simply strikes people aft... more Grief is often conceived in causal or reactive terms, as something that simply strikes people after a loss. But, on closer scrutiny, there are good reasons to think of grief as a normative phenomenon, which is done or enacted by people, relative to cultural norms. To substantiate the claim that grief should be thought of as normative, we draw upon empirical examples from a qualitative interview study with bereaved parents following infant loss, and analyze how grieving the loss of a small child in our culture is experienced, interpreted, and enacted within a diffuse and ambivalent, yet inescapable, moral framework. Further, we discuss some of the possible consequences for bereaved individuals when navigating the normative landscape of grieving in contemporary Western cultures: A landscape in which suffering is increasingly dealt with in psychiatric and medical terms and understood as an adverse and unnecessary condition to be overcome in order to maximize personal health, happiness, and well-being.
In this essay, I explore the significance of involving personal experiences with loss in my resea... more In this essay, I explore the significance of involving personal experiences with loss in my research on parental bereavement. By intersecting autoethnography and findings from a qualitative interview study with bereaved parents following infant loss, I argue that while popular and professional accounts depict normal grief as a transitory state, parental accounts present grief as a continuing and open-ended relationship with the dead child. In acknowledgment of this, I present fragmentary, non-reifying narratives of the continuing realities of becoming a bereaved parent.
In recent years, human scientists have generalized the so-called hypothesis of the extended mind ... more In recent years, human scientists have generalized the so-called hypothesis of the extended mind to human emotional life. The extended mind hypothesis states that objects within the environment function as a part of the mind and are centrally involved in cognition. Some emotion researchers have argued along these lines that there are bodily extended emotions, and (more controversially) environmentally extended emotions. In this article, we will first briefly introduce the idea of the extended mind and extended emotions before applying it to the emotion of grief specifically. We explain by introducing the notion of a cultural affective niche within which grief is scaffolded and enacted. An affective niche couples the person and the environment and enables the realization of affective states.
In this paper I present three ideal typical grief articulations drawn from three historical perio... more In this paper I present three ideal typical grief articulations drawn from three historical periods: 1) Grief as a moral practice in Ancient Greek virtue ethics, 2) Grief as an expression of an inner, authentic morality in the Romantic era, and, 3) Grief as a psychologized and increasingly pathologized phenomenon in modern psychology up to the present attempts to include separate diagnoses for pathological grief in the diagnostic manuals for mental disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; World Health Organization, 2016). The purpose of this presentation is to shed light on current taken for granted notions of grief, and, by providing some historical background, challenge prevailing understandings that depict grief as an ahistorical, universal, intra-psychological and (potentially) medical condition that is analytically separate from historical, social, cultural and religious practices. Informed by a cultural psychological outlook (Brinkmann, 2016; Valsiner, 2014), I argue that the relationship between grieving individuals and their cultures is dialectical, mutually constituting and inherently normative, and hence, that the diagnostic approach to grief as an individual, causal reaction to loss is flawed. On this background, I argue that an acknowledgement of the inherent normativity of grief (as presented by the historical accounts) can potentially inform and enrich contemporary understandings and practices related to bereavement, ultimately to the benefit of people who suffer from grief.
Uploads
Papers by Ester Kofod