what is grief?
Experts identify waves or stages of mourning that manifest as different thoughts and feelings, but their models fail to acknowledge that these waves arise within a greater ocean that is not an emotion but a prolonged state of shock. Although loss precipitates all kinds of emotional reactions, grief itself is not one. Rather, it is the background of them all, the agonizing sense that something vital has gone missing or been stolen, as the etymology of bereavement (from be + reafian "rob, plunder") suggests.
John Bowlby studied loss and attachment very closely. In an institutional setting where toddlers were separated from their mothers for extended periods, he and his colleague James Robertson observed how a lively, healthy child gradually moves from a state of agitation to ornery rebellion to, finally, a state of complete despondency when he loses all hope of his mother's return. The team collated their findings into a poignant documentary called A two-year-old goes to ho…
John Bowlby studied loss and attachment very closely. In an institutional setting where toddlers were separated from their mothers for extended periods, he and his colleague James Robertson observed how a lively, healthy child gradually moves from a state of agitation to ornery rebellion to, finally, a state of complete despondency when he loses all hope of his mother's return. The team collated their findings into a poignant documentary called A two-year-old goes to ho…
