Grief. Svend Brinkmann

as we have both a concept of death as the inevitable end point of life and the ability to love particular individuals. Love and death are both prerequisites for grief. Other species feel depressed and suffer separation anxiety, which superficially resembles grief, but I argue in this chapter that it is not actual grief – at least not in the way that humans grieve. Grief requires a reflexive awareness of finitude and emotional relationships that other species only possess on a rudimentary level. In this way, grief tells us something essential about human beings, that they can be understood as grieving animals, or at least as animals with the potential to grieve. If this is true, then humans should not just be understood as rational animals, as Aristotle believed (or Homo sapiens, the thinking person), but on a deeper level, as beings with the potential to have certain emotional relationships with the world and other people (we might call such a species Homo sentimentalis) – a potential that manifests itself, not least, in grief.

Chapter 3 follows up with a more focused phenomenological study of the being of grief. Based on Husserl’s phenomenology – specifically as applied in Thomas Fuchs (2018) and Matthew Ratcliffe’s studies of grief – it shows how grief manifests itself as the loss of a ‘system of possibilities’ (Ratcliffe 2017). In other words, the bereaved are left with a deep-rooted attachment to someone who has passed away. In poetic terms, it is a love that has become homeless. However, I also argue that this is where Husserl’s phenomenology encounters its limits, as it risks reducing the experience of loss to nothing more than the bereaved’s representations of the dead (a lost ‘system of possibilities’). As a result, I supplement this position with Emmanuel Levinas’s more radical phenomenology, which criticises the reduction of the deceased to their importance to the grieving self. According to Levinas, grief is not only about losing a ‘system of possibilities’, it is more fundamental – a loved one is no longer in this world. Grief has to be understood not only psychologically, but also ontologically.² This also explains why it is possible to grieve the loss of a loved one or of an idealised other to whom we may never have been close (e.g. idols or celebrities). The chapter also identifies some of the psychological implications of grief that challenge psychology’s standard atomistic, functionalist (e.g. evolutionary psychology) and causal explanations. As an existential phenomenon, grief tells us something about humans as relational beings, and about psychology as a science that deals with a domain of reality that resists simple evolutionary or causal reduction.

Chapter 4 focuses specifically on grief as an embodied emotion. From ancient Greek tragedies to modern painting, the physical expression of grief has been depicted in a fairly uniform manner. The chapter shows how the experience of loss is recognised via the body of the bereaved. Grief etches itself into us and we express it physically. The basic thesis is that grief in some way takes root in our physicality – the body itself is effectively in mourning. An analysis of the embodiment of grief tells us something essential about human emotional life, and about the relationship between the mind, the body and the world.

      Chapter 5 examines grief as something that is not only in the body but also in culture, in the form of material practices and systems of symbols. Grief is something felt and enacted along with others in a cultural setting consisting of cemeteries, memorials, photo albums, heirlooms and so forth. In other words, grief has both socially and materially distributed aspects. Psychology is plagued by a problematic individualism, in which grief and other psychological phenomena are assumed to be exclusively states that exist ‘inside the mind’ of the individual. Understanding grief as a socially and materially distributed phenomenon bypasses this individualism. It enables us to understand how grief is shared through traditional cultural practices, and even ‘outsourced’ to others, such as professional mourners, or ‘keeners’ in Ireland. Music, rituals and physical objects help to shape grief in a variety of ways. The chapter therefore looks at the socio-material context of the experience of loss and grief.

As a psychological phenomenon, grief is almost unparalleled in its universal human quality, which is derived from the inevitability of death and the resultant sense of loss. However, as cultural and social anthropologists have shown (see e.g. Scheper-Hughes 1993), it manifests itself differently around the world, which makes it important to tread carefully when differentiating between general and particular aspects of grief. This has been particularly important in psychiatry in recent years, with the emergence of the diagnostic category ‘complicated grief’, which it is envisaged will have a broad validity that transcends cultures. Against this background, in Chapter 6 I return to the current debate about the medicalisation of grief and discuss the rationale behind the ‘complicated grief’ diagnosis. I look at the new grief diagnoses in the light of four authoritative theories of psychopathology, and conclude that although grief can be extremely painful, even debilitating, we do not yet have sufficient reason to believe that it is pathological in and of itself. In certain cases, grief may lead to mental disorders (particularly depression), but the trend toward medicalisation should, as far as possible, be resisted. The book concludes in Chapter 7 with a discussion of grief’s status in contemporary cultural and social contexts.

      It is worth noting that while the chapters collectively provide a holistic understanding of grief – from how it is experienced by the self, via phenomenology, to an understanding of the importance of body, sociality and materiality – they can also be read in isolation. Chapter 5, on the ecology of grief, is probably the most challenging, because it is the one that diverges the most clearly from the prevailing, individualistic understanding of grief. It may aid understanding to first read this introduction and then Chapter 7.

Science, art and culture

      Although the book primarily seeks to convey general psychological perspectives on grief, I also wish to illustrate the discussion with references to various cultural and artistic idioms, including poetry and fiction (e.g. Joan Didion, Naja Marie Aidt), TV shows (e.g. Black Mirror), visual art (e.g. van Gogh, Munch) and theatre (both Greek tragedies and modern experimental drama). The point of this is not just to make the book more accessible. Rather, it reflects my conviction that art is more than an expression of an artist’s irrational creative power, devoid of context – it is a systematic study of the many dimensions and phenomena of human experience, including grief. Science studies the world through its special methods and then conveys the results, but art does more than merely narrate – it also shows the phenomena being examined, which facilitates a more nuanced understanding than is possible with linear research methods. With this in mind, I hope that the book will prove useful to professionals in areas like psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and theology, as well as to anyone interested in grief as a basic human experience. Although the book is primarily about grief as an emotion that usually follows the death of someone close, it also identifies grief as a basic existential state that is better encapsulated by art than by science. In his poetry collection Rystet spejl (Shaken Mirror), Søren Ulrich Thomsen writes of loss:

Little children too dream of their past

      which is huge and dusky

      full of scents and unrecognizable figures

      reflected in polished floors.

      Even the very old feel bereft

      when they sit staring in dayrooms

      and suddenly remember

      that they have lost their parents.³

As human beings, the bonds we forge with others are both a gift and a curse – as such, grief is a lifelong companion. This mournful, melancholic undertone to life appears quite at odds with our positivity-oriented, happiness-obsessed age, and yet there