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This article explores the digitalization of traditional funeral joss paper into digital commodities through the case study of the Chinese online cemetery 00tang.com. Joss paper are paper replicas of everyday items such as money and objects that are ritually burned as a form of symbolic offering to the deceased in accordance with traditional Chinese practices of ancestor worship. Using both ethnographic interviews and discursive interface analysis, I look at how the remediation of spiritual joss paper into digital objects complicates perceived dichotomy between the gift and commodity that requires new ways of thinking about the acts of social reciprocity, indebtedness, and obligation. Drawing on established literature relating to gift and digital economies, I argue 00tang's digitization of joss paper on internet cemeteries is reflexive of the biopolitical means by which the state and market forces work to subsume traditional ancestor worship into controllable and commodifiable labor of mourning. Here, the subversive wastefulness of the gift is replaced by its accumulation and preservation online. Digitization in this regard highlights the process by which objects take on different materiality, values, aesthetics, and productive labor practices, all of which fundamentally alters the symbolic regimes of death and the ritual gift economy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Exploring The Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis" is an interview by Maggie Turp with Sally Weintrobe, the author of the book of this title and a leading psychoanalytic climate change protagonist. The authors of the latter paper have since added a coda in which they sorrowfully acknowledge that their paper's title which includes "Life and Death", referring to the precarious state of psychoanalytical societies in the Ukraine, is no longer a metaphor but has become the reality of their daily lives. I am writing this editorial as people in the United Kingdom and others across the world mourn the death of an exceptional monarch. [Extracted from the article]

This discussion considers the elements of mythos and story telling that frame the case material Francoise Davoine offers and analyzes. In this discussion, I highlight the role of nachtraglichkeit, the nonlinearity of time and temporality that shapes the key events in this clinical narrative. I consider the relational aspects of countertransference, enactment, and personal analysis that shape Davoine's analytic listening and the uncanny effects of historical trauma that enter both analyst and analysand. This discussion also considers the interlocking of speech effects and temporality, the role of unconscious dialogues across history and time, that arise unbidden in clinical work. The analyst's freedom to live imaginatively in a process somewhat outside her clinical management is viewed as a key to the freeing of processes of mourning and rehabilitation in the patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the well-known and often-taught novel The Chrysalids toward a reconsideration of the novel's place within curriculum and the pedagogies it may offer. Framed as a mourning ceremony, a way of revisioning what the novel could mean in the present by saying goodbye to what it has meant in the past, the paper progresses in two major moments. The first looks at the novel in the author's lived experience and discusses personal mourning. The second engages affect theory toward a (re)reading of the material resistances and erasures within one copy of the text. The author concludes by expressing the need for a (re)visioning of what curricular fixtures such as The Chrysalids could mean today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the generosity of the Alexandra and Martin Symonds Foundation, each year Studies in Gender and Sexuality (SGS) recognizes an outstanding essay that speaks to the intersections of psychoanalysis and cultural theories of gender and sexuality. The editors are delighted to award the 2022 Symonds Prize to Urvashi Agarwal for her paper "An Appeal for Mourning" and to Antonios Poulios for his paper "Chemsex: Reintroducing Sexuality in the Pleasure and Pain of the Infans." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even during years of separation Federico was present in Suhrida's heart, with his death she had lost him physically, but the memories remained just beneath the surface, provoking grief at unexpected moments. This essay is primarily an appreciation of the wonderful paper by Suhrida Yadavalli, which is more than your regular academic or clinical paper. Discussion As I noted in the beginning of this essay, I see Suhrida Yadavalli's paper as a contribution to the work of revision of model of mourning. Finally, Suhrida shows how resources such as yoga and meditation can provide the practitioner with the opportunity to confront the inevitably painful and at times, sad world, to respond creatively and perhaps with joy, celebrating its tragic beauty. [Extracted from the article]

Winnicott's paper, "Playing, Creativity, and the Search for the Self," Chapter 4 of Playing and Reality is the second leg of Winnicott's two-part opus on play. It is the focus of Smadar Steinbock's essay on temporality in the work of Winnicott and Loewald. Winnicott's is a paper fundamentally about play. I suggest that for Winnicott, play always involves time, specifically the actual or feared loss of time or object, namely what I have referred to as the play of mourning. For Winnicott, temporality is inextricably bound with his notion of place. And they are both contained in the analytic setting. This is a setting that allows for the emergence of play and creative experiences of self, in time in general and for the time being. Like so many phenomena in Winnicott's theory building, time involves both actual or real time and time as incorporated psychically into the realm of illusion. Chapter 4 puts forward the ways that patient and analyst hold the paradox of time as actual and as incorporated into the realm of psychic illusion in order for the patient to be found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The important role of schools in supporting children experiencing bereavement is established, yet less is known about how school curricula include death as part of life and this limits our understanding of the systemic structures that shape children's knowledge and experience of death. To address this gap, this paper discusses an analysis of the Scottish curriculum to explore the extent to which death features in compulsory education for children aged 3 to 15 years. The findings show that whilst death is present across the curricula, certain types of 'knowing' death are promoted, largely situated across religious teaching, which may limit children's engagement with the multiple and complex ways in which death features across individual, social, physical, and relational domains. By integrating the concepts of death systems and death ambivalence, the paper develops new knowledge on the interplay between curricula and sense making around death in children's lives that has practical utility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper describes art therapy sessions outdoors with a six-year-old child following multiple adverse childhood experiences and a recent bereavement of a relative who died by suicide. Context: Art therapy took place in a major city in Scotland. Sessions took place both at a local community centre and a nature reserve. Approach: Sessions employed an outdoor approach to art therapy that was underpinned by artistic concepts and ecopsychology. Outcomes: The child presented in this paper engaged notably differently when sessions were taken outside. He began to explore and communicate more coherently about his life experiences and the death of his relative. Conclusions: Through interacting with the natural environment during outdoor sessions, this child was able to explore and express concerns much more freely than during indoor sessions. Implications for Research: There is a need for further research focusing on outdoor art therapy due to a dearth of peer-reviewed research on this topic. Plain language summary: This paper describes art therapy sessions which took place outdoors. The art therapy sessions were held at a local nature reserve in a major city in Scotland. The child who attended the sessions was six years old. He had previously lived through several traumatic life experiences, and a relative had recently died by suicide. Case examples present ways in which moving sessions outdoors may have helped him with exploring and expressing his experience of the death of his relative. There is potential that outdoor art therapy sessions may help children to talk about difficult experiences. Future research is needed to develop our knowledge of what is and is not helpful during outdoor art therapy, for which children and under what circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractDeath is commonly accepted as the irreversible ending of all biological functions that keep an organism alive. However, understanding death is more complicated than merely comprehending the biological elements of death. Beyond the biological elements of death, it is also critical to understand death’s social, cognitive, and environmental aspects as they influence death awareness, death anxiety, grief and bereavement, and death education. This paper explores the development of mature death concept in children, from early childhood to adolescence. Drawing on a range of developmental and death awareness theoretical frameworks, the authors create a comprehensive model describing the development of mature death concept. The goal of this paper is to propose one theoretical perspective that connects traditional cognitive, socioemotional, and ecological developmental theories with current death awareness theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section announces that paper proposals for concurrent sessions of the 2006 International Death, Grief, and Bereavement Conference on June 4-7, 2006 are being accepted until November 1, 2005. Guidelines for submission can be gleaned from the web site www.uxlax.edu.

In this paper, I use personal experience methods to journal about processing loss in the aftermath of the death of my friend and mentor, Dr. Hazel F. Dicken-Garcia. I hope this paper encourages readers to utilize personal experience methods as one mechanism through which to more effectively cope with loss in their personal and professional lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the capacity to mourn is ubiquitously acknowledged as critical for individual psychic functioning, the impact of this capacity on a collective social level has been examined to a very limited extent in the psychoanalytic literature to date. The two papers that take up this this topic thus bring various critical and complex issues to our attention. After reviewing and commenting on these papers, I discuss how these issues are particularly relevant today to society in general and psychoanalysis in particular. I believe that the ability to mourn is under siege in the Western world at present, with respect to both "macro" mourning that is, mourning for significant losses such as a beloved person, ideal, or country, and "micro" mourning or mourning for losses inherently and unavoidably implicated in choices we make in everyday life. These mourning processes are undermined by the impact of complex socioeconomic parameters on psychic functioning, as evidenced by various internal problems and symptomatology characteristic of our times. In turn, difficulties in mourning contribute to social problems including social injustice, wars and the climate crisis. As psychoanalysts we are called upon to address these issues in our clinical work as well as in our global community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper hopes to enhance understanding about entrenched grievance in a couple of ways: (a) Initially, the paper reviews how entrenched grievance reflects melancholic states of mind in terms of its avoidance of the pain of loss and change. But the main contribution of the paper is likely to be found in (b), that is, via detailed clinical material, the paper illustrates how earnest efforts on the part of the analyst to bring understanding may lead to cognitive entrapments such as the convictions incumbent in the “knowing” analyst. Further, that this knowing analyst may need to become aggrieved, that is, narrow, impatient and concrete towards her patient’s entrenchment, and then to recogize this plight in herself before she can genuinely hear her patient’s grievance about her from a wider view, that is as a complaint from the “lively self”, deserving recognition. The clinical detail demonstrates that such recognition softened the patient’s grievance, allowing both members of the dyad to become more collaborative and open to the pains and growth available from mourning states of mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion of David Price's paper focuses on the central question Price is asking, "How do you mourn the actual death of a parent who abandoned you to a childhood in foster care at the age of 5?" Since David was abandoned by his mother at such a young age, I argue that it is not possible to mourn what he has lost, because he didn't have the opportunity to grow up with his mother. Rather the loss was sudden, traumatic and ambiguous, all at the same time. Since his mother has actually died, following the presentation and publication of his earlier paper, "Changing the Narrative; Refusing the Script," in which he bared his story for the "gaze of the world to see," David has been able to mourn what he has lost. And sadly, what he has come to recognize is that what he lost is a "self-object" connection he never had. However, with the loss of hope that comes with actual death, it has been possible to mourn the mother he lost so many years ago. Sadly, and ironically, mourning has been catalyzed by the loss of hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools inevitably face difficult discussions with children about loss and death, irrespective of whether it is factored into formal teaching. A range of societal factors in many countries, not least a lack of training, compound to leave many teachers unprepared to manage these sensitive issues. Whilst resources and guidance are widely available, there is a gap in generating pedagogical tools which are underpinned by solid theoretical grounding. This article addresses that gap, reporting on a case study of staff (n = 12) working in an infant school in England, where an interdisciplinary project was implemented to explore whether creative pedagogies could empower staff to address these difficult topics with young children. Contextualised within thanatology, (the study of death and its social practices), an intervention was designed and co-created with teachers synthesising education, literature, architecture/design and the arts. The paper details its theoretical and practical development, and the participants’ responses to it. The article concludes that despite initial ambivalence among some school staff about using creative pedagogies, responses at the end of the study were positive and confidence had increased. The need for theoretically sound approaches is supported as part of the long-advocated calls for mandatory death/life education, although the potential dissonance between academics and practitioners’ views about the value of theory is acknowledged. However, the paper argues that co-created interdisciplinary projects such as this can help bridge theory-practice divides. Furthermore, they can offer practical spaces for reflection and confidence building in time-effective ways to benefit teachers and children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pregnancy ends and its materials are framed differently depending on the social and historical context. Engaging with scholarship on the plasticity of meaning around pregnancy materials, this paper illustrates how the approach to pregnancy remains has changed in England since the 1980s, with remains progressively being treated as human remains with associated assumption of mourning. The paper revisits interview data collected between 2014–2016 with women who had recently miscarried, revealing diversity in approaches to miscarriage and pregnancy remains. The women’s experiences preceded the issuance of guidance by the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) in 2015, which informed revising of clinical approaches to pregnancy remains disposal. The data is important in documenting practices around pregnancy remains and the way such approaches were formalised in activities of care. During the unfamiliar experience of miscarriage, the clinic was a key site of prescription and exploration, having a defining role in the meaning of pregnancy materials. Drawing on ethnographic research the paper provides examples of how women navigate these practices and possible frictions that emerge when approaches differ. The paper argues that clinical practices do not provide sufficient flexibility to respond to the diversity of women’s approaches to their pregnancy material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As psychoanalysts we have grown used to thinking of our patient's problems as rooted in past relationships and attachment patterns. We try and focus on the conflictual and traumatic events of our patient's formative years and relate them to the current difficulties that bring them into treatment with us. However, where severe or recurrent trauma has led to a sense of dread and hopelessness with regard to the future, we also confront the death of the patient's desire and the complex and intertwined relationship of desire, shame, and parental abuse and/or neglect. This death of desire takes us to the heart of the transference/countertransference configurations, and moves us gently from our exploration of the past into the subjunctive, "would that I could" of the present therapeutic relationship. This paper will focus on (1) the relationship between desire and shame, (2) the way in which the subjunctive constitutes and contains mourning, and (3) the relationship between mourning, hope, and psychoanalytic imagination. An extended clinical example will be presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the paper "Nicki, Nicholas, Nicole: Play as Relational Therapeutic Action on the Transgender Edge," Virginia Goldner and Charla Malamed have offered supportive comments and important critiques. Goldner has raised questions about the process of mourning gendered self-states that present themselves earlier in development. This paper, as a response to the respondents, puts Goldner's questions in dialogue with the concepts of après coup and psychic time, problematizing notions about what is past and present vis-à-vis varying gender configurations. Malamed links my lack of explicit disclosure around certain positionalities to creating a space that was dangerous for therapeutic play. Here, I take issue with the concreteness of that position, suggesting that the intersubjective fabric of a treatment—and subsequent democratization of the clinical relationship—is a more appropriate benchmark for evaluating the potential for exploitative dynamics. The nature of risk and safety in clinical encounters is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how the human corpse can function as an aesthetic-therapeutic for the deceased, the bereaved and for death care professionals. It understands the human corpse as a liminal entity that is characterised by a specific materiality, biography and self-referentiality. Because of these attributes the corpse can be employed as an aesthetic-therapeutic by the bereaved and by death care professionals in response to a death. On the basis of participant observation in the death care industry and qualitative interviews with bereaved people and funeral professionals in the Netherlands, the paper discusses four engagements with the dead body in the period prior to the funeral: i) caring, ii) sustaining, iii) restoring, and iv) disregarding the dead body. Crucially, it shows how such engagements can contribute to the well-being of those involved, including the deceased, who is often understood to be sentient. Furthermore, by focusing on cases where the corpse is disregarded, the paper argues that an aesthetic-therapeutic understanding of the human corpse is hegemonic in the death care industry. The analysis and conclusion offer insights to scholars in the interdisciplinary field of death studies, as well as reflections for practitioners in end-of-life and death care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marc Adelman's Stelen is a collection of 150 images of men posing at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Germany. Understanding the photographs that compromise Stelen involves tracking a number of shifts that have taken place across different fields: a change in the understanding of the role of the public memorial which has seen the construction of 'anti-memorials' or 'counter-monuments' such as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe; a turn towards participatory memory practices in museums and at memorial sites; digital photography and the impact of social media. In the first part of this paper, I explore how these trends intersect in order to give an account of the conditions of production of the photographs. Adelman has proposed that the photographs might be understood in relation to the role that the memory of the Holocaust plays in contemporary queer life. In the second part of this paper, I use Michael Rothberg's concept of Multidirectional Memory to consider Stelen as a counter-archive that offers a multidirectional articulation of grief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an introduction to a collection of papers on developmental trauma which describe psychological and biological effects of exposure to extreme adversity that affects all of development from childhood into adulthood. Each of the papers contributes a different lens in the way we think about and treat people who have experienced trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Therapeutic responses to substance use disorder (SUD) have been an individual and community health challenge for many years. Mutual support fellowships continue to make important contributions. The peer-based, 12 Step meeting model has existed for nearly a century, and these meetings in general, and Cocaine Anonymous (CA) meetings in particular, are therapeutic. How specific topics are engaged in meetings is not well understood, especially topics related to emotional regulation. Research suggests that addiction recovery is quite similar to, and strongly linked with, a prolonged or pathological grief. How grief and healing matter in these meetings is an important area for research. This paper explores these interlinked processes in CA meetings to understand how they contribute to resilience. Shares on grief-related topics from more than 100 CA meetings and over seven years of data collection are analyzed. Addressing grief in these meetings contributes to improved health outcomes. Grief-related topics emerged into five (5) themes. These grief discussions contributed to the presence of four (4) dimensions of a social ecology of resilience in recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a time when the natural death and home deathcare movements are gaining traction both in the UK and elsewhere, this article details an exploratory project on the barriers to and potential for caring for deceased people at home in England. A two-phase study, the paper uses data from a discourse analysis and interviews with deathcare professionals to show that there is limited information online on keeping the deceased person at home, and that participants felt that a lack of awareness was a significant barrier to families being able to make an informed choices about home deathcare. Including poor information provision, the paper identifies five reasons as to why there is a low uptake of home deathcare in England and makes recommendations for how each of these barriers may be overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We Die As We Live, is an art in health research project that positions palliative care staff, working in a myriad of capacities in hospital and hospice settings, as 'Death Elders' because of their expert knowledge and accumulated experience of death and dying. This paper speculates on the commemorative dimensions of death, dying and bereavement as embodied in socially-engaged artistic processes. The weekly art workshops I organised, during my yearlong artist residency at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, were designed to solicit meaningful reflection about death and its impact on the staff, using craft materials, mediums and processes that engaged the participants' senses, and encouraged open discussion about mortality and impermanence. At the end of the residency, when these collective works on paper and ephemeral sculptures were presented in the waiting areas of St Vincent's Hospital, they illustrated that every death is unique and every experience of death is unique, reinforced that we are all connected by this universal truth, and invited public discussion and reflection about the pervasive influence of death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military widow/ers can experience spousal death suddenly and in traumatic circumstances. Evidence shows that this experience often has a long-term effect on surviving family members, highlighting the unique experiences of loneliness and social isolation in the armed forces community. This study aimed to explore military widow/ers' lived experiences of social isolation and loneliness and unmet needs relating to social participation. This paper presents the qualitative findings of a sequential study in which Phase One utilized an online survey (N = 165) and Phase Two employed semi-structured interviews (N = 26). Almost all participants across both Phases discussed feeling lonely, socially isolated, or both. Findings highlight the complexity in transition from military spouse to military widow/er through the loss of a military community and geographical location. This was further compounded by language barriers and perceived hierarchy (through service life or circumstances of death) which created obstacles to help seeking. However, individuals who did join military widow/ers' associations valued peer support through shared connection and understanding. Peer support was particularly valued as, for many, existing relationships with friends or family members were often negatively impacted following bereavement. These changed relationships led to feelings of both vulnerability and loss. Consideration needs to be given to how access to appropriate support is gained and what provision needs to be in place. This study recommends the use of more inclusive language for the military bereaved to promote inclusive practices and broaden the availability of support, including that which would increase social participation, across the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractGrieving at a distance is a common and often challenging experience for migrants. As a result of travel restrictions and border closures, grieving at a distance became a focus of media reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aimed to examine the representation of migrants’ grief at a distance during the pandemic in online newspaper articles. We used a qualitative framing analysis to analyze nine articles published in online international newspapers. Three frames were identified: Grief as an impossible situation, migrants left with impossible choices, and grief as culturally mediated. These frames focused on how the psychological experience of grief was intertwined with migrants’ broader societal and cultural contexts. They emphasized the complex choices migrants faced due to their personal situations and cross-cultural experiences. Findings offer insights into how the media depicts migrant experiences, thus shaping public perceptions of their grief and bereavement. They reveal the difficulties of transnational grief migrants experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances knowledge around the intersection of death, loss, and leisure travel. Our phenomenological study revealed the lived experiences of seven senior travelers who had traveled internationally following the death of a loved one(s). We employed the 'MeBox' method to help uncover new layers of meaning that are not always easy to put into words. The findings of our study provide new insights into notions of leisure by identifying overseas leisure travel within a liminal space in which feelings of loss and acceptance, and the creation of new perspectives, are experienced following the death of a loved one(s). Our findings challenge the destructive nature of human loss following death of a loved one(s). Instead, the experience of international travel appeared to influence the social, material, and existential life of senior travelers after the death of a loved one(s), transforming leisure into a personally meaningful experience for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the role of personal writing in processes involving writing, processing loss and grief, and identity consolidation, employed in shaping the character of Emily Starr in the book "Emily of New Moon" by Lucy Maud Montgomery, well known for her series "Anne of Green Gables" and for the character of Anne Shirley. Emily, who is dealing with orphanhood following the childhood loss of both parents in a short span of time, uses writing to vent her feelings when in distress and as a way of maintaining contact with her father who died, by writing to him. Later on, the possibility of renewing her emotional connection with her mother through an encounter with the room where she grew up and by writing to her, removes Emily from her state of existential loneliness and brings her closer to her true self, manifested in the creative and spontaneous elements within her. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Death and mourning are being shaped by posthumous opportunities for the dead to affect current life in ways not possible in pre-digital generations. The psychological and sociological impact of the dead 'online' and of 'grief tech' is only beginning to be understood. It has not yet been explored psychoanalytically until this paper that examines one type of grief tech, namely the griefbot. This development is critically explored through a psychoanalytic reading of an episode of Black Mirror. I suggest that a psychoanalytic model of mourning provides an invaluable perspective to help us to think about this technology's potential as well as the psychological and ethical risks it poses. I argue that the immortalisation of the dead through digital permanence works against facing the painful reality of loss and the recognition of otherness, which is fundamental to psychic growth and to the integrity of our relationships with others. Drawing on Derrida's conceptualization of 'originary mourning', I suggest that mourning is an interminable process that challenges us to preserve within the self the otherness of the lost object. The tools we use for mourning need to be assessed first and foremost against this psychological and fundamentally ethical process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freud's paper on the three caskets is revisited. His view that the lead casket represented death is supported by extracts from The Merchant of Venice, in particular the song, "Tell Me Where is Fancy Bred". It is argued that the acceptance of death is a necessary step in the transformation of romantic love to mature love. With experience of reality a disillusion of romantic idealisation becomes possible, but this means that losses have to be accepted and mourned. It is argued that this is made more bearable if an ironic stance enables an acceptance of the pleasures of romance without believing them to be literally true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Livestreaming and filming death rites and funeral ceremonies to enable remote engagement proliferated rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many expect these options to remain prevalent going forward. This paper draws on interviews with a diverse UK sample of 68 bereaved people, funeral directors, officiants and celebrants. It illustrates how, and explains why, people's experiences and evaluations of hybrid funerals can vary. In a context when in-person gatherings were limited, hybridisation played a valuable role in enabling more people to engage with funerals. However, virtual attendance was often considered less satisfying than in-person attendance because it did not enable people to participate well in the funeral activities that mattered to them or to participate with others as they would in person. Scope for participation was partly contingent on the functionality and use made of technology, including whether and which steps were taken to facilitate engagement and a sense of connection for those joining online. People's evaluations of hybrid funerals could also reflect their relationships to the deceased and their frames of reference – for example, whether they were comparing virtual attendance to attending in person, or to being unable to attend at all, or to an overwhelmingly large funeral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the cultural conceptualisation of children's social identity and status through memorialisation, based on the study of children's grave markers and plots in five South Australian cemeteries (from colonisation to the present), with an age range from infant (including stillborn) to 20 years. The idea of childness, the differing conception of being or being labelled a child, was used as a measure to identify the degree of variation in child identity realised by child-only and family grave markers, showing both change and continuity in the representation of children through family choices of form, style, wording, motif, spatial arrangement and grave furniture. Archaeological evidence of childness was observed through representations of smallness, innocence, domesticity, play, temporality and the distinct emotional nature of the parent-child relationship. Notably in the latter period of study, within the context of lower child mortality, revised understandings of child identity and status were observed representing the social re-evaluation of prenatally deceased and stillborn children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ginevra is one of Shelley's most overlooked poems, possibly because of its status as fragment. The present study aims to interpret the poem as a manifestation of Shelley's consciousness. To that end, I analyse Ginevra through two frames – that of the biographical and that of the intrapsychic, focusing particularly on the mechanisms of shame, revenge, and desire. My discussion argues that what is at stake in interpreting Ginevra is Shelley's severed relationship with Emilia Viviani whom he had elevated to a status of sanctity in Epipsychidion. The method of the paper is to trace the double structure of Shelley's consciousness – his awareness of Emilia's marriage and imagined inconstancy, his private state of despair and public state of disgrace. How these aspects of Shelley's experience were transformed into art is the paper's subject. Freud's theory of fetishism, Kernberg's theory of narcissism and Christopher Bollas's ideas of transitional objects inform my argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peskin, in his last paper (this issue), proposes a wide relational framework for understanding the roots and contexts of painful, unresolved mourning. In Freud, the work of the mourner takes place solely in the person's inner world and reflects the mix of feelings the person had toward the loved one. Peskin describes a specific family dynamic which influences how a person is able to grieve, beyond the relationship with the lost loved one. Within the family, a "ranking of grief" emerges, which delineates who has priority in grieving, and who has to "defer" grief in accord with these implicit rules. Unearthing these dynamics, calls for an active form of therapeutic witnessing. In this discussion, a double meaning of deferring grief is explored. In Peskin's examples, grief is held back when deferring to the demands of a dominant family member. As a result, the expression of the mourner's grief is also deferred, postponed, to be possibly expressed at a later time. Another variety of deferred grief is described, using as an example the narrator in Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Peskin asserts the right to mourn as a fundamental human right. This discussion ends with speculation about the societal conditions which may frustrate or encourage mourning. The assertion of the right to mourn ties this paper to Peskin's earlier contributions on the effects of dehumanization following horrific trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The loss of a family member is often conceptualized as a disruption in one's life story. However, when a loss occurs prior to, or during, one's birth, the bereaved life stories are not interrupted by the loss, but rather begin with loss. The paper offers a new conceptualization of these losses as "congenital losses" and captures the core aspects of this phenomenon. A qualitative phenomenological analysis of 34 in-depth semi-structured interviews with offspring and siblings whose family members died before/during their birth revealed four main challenges presented by congenital loss: incoherency and fragmentation; storyownership; bond-establishment, and; identity challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Spring 2020, the New York Army and Air National Guard (NYNG) rapidly deployed to New York City (NYC) to assist in the recovery, processing, and transport of COVID-19 decedents. This study reports on a survey conducted by NYNG service members three to six months post-mission (n = 177). Data showed that there was a dose–response relationship between mission stress exposure and decremented mental health, but certain activities were associated with better mental health outcomes. The paper also reviews resources provided by behavioral health personnel to support service members during the mission and lessons learned to inform future decedent recovery missions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When I began writing this paper, I was amid coping with several losses. I had lost a beloved friend and a family member to COVID-19, and though it seemed that we were coming out of the woods in the US, the juggernaut virus was burning through my native country of India, where most of my family lives. As a candidate starting analytic training in 2020, Freud's Mourning and Melancholia was particularly poignant as it lays the foundation for object relations borne out of a process of coping with loss. Freud described mourning as an agonizing process of identification, disinvestment and reinvestment. He emphasized the role of intrapsychic factors in the capacity to mourn. Since then, analysts have countered by writing about the highly social nature of the task of mourning and the importance in grieving of a loving communal embrace. In this paper, I explore one's early experiences with Winnicott's holding environment and transitional phenomena as an explanation of the capacity to mourn. I will extend mourning to another form of loss, namely, transience, i.e., temporariness of time and experience. Finally, I will consider how the developmental achievement of the capacity to be alone is inherent in specific intrapsychic modes of mourning transience and could be extended to intrapsychic capacity to mourn in bereavement. I will explore these ideas with a backdrop of traditional Indian rituals and spiritual practices, which embody and uniquely elaborate other essential Winnicottian features, including paradox, dialectics and the third area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of Philippine cemeteries has been traditionally placed within the purview of archaeology, which, broadly speaking, places importance in its material cultures. To further broaden our knowledge about these sites, this paper explores how Philippine cemeteries, particularly Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB), generate meaning through their linguistic landscape (LL). Using place semiotics approach and indexicality, this study identifies seven communicative functions used in LNMB epitaphs: (1) affective, (2) associative, (3) celebrative, (4) memorative, (6) desiderative, and (7) summative. In doing so, this study not only treats public signs as communicative 'actors' which convey meaning and pragmatic function but it also analyzes the act of 'engaging' with epitaphs as a highly contextualised speech event. Finally, this study argues that epitaphs signify discourses of memory, remembrance, and patriotism and index sociocultural and political realities, all of which contribute to the creation of LNMB not only as a cemetery per se but also as a place of experience and embodiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses disruption to norms of funeral attendance experienced in the UK during the COVID−19 pandemic as a lens to illuminate why and how funeral attendance can matter. It draws on an extensive qualitative dataset, gathered through semi-structured interviews with a diverse sample of 68 individuals who were bereaved and/or worked or volunteered in death care during the COVID−19 pandemic. It first examines interviewees' concerns about the insufficiency of funerals when gatherings were restricted. Second, it depicts the range of additional and alternative ways people found to pay tribute to the deceased and to offer and seek support when conventional funeral attendance was limited. Third, it explains why, for some, the smaller funerals necessitated by pandemic restrictions were welcome experiences. These findings support a development of Bailey and Walter's influential theorising concerning 'configurational eulogies': while a 'well-attended' funeral still matters to many, mourners contribute to configurational eulogies through a diverse and evolving range of activities. The shifts in funeral gatherings and activities prompted by the COVID−19 pandemic can be understood as part of dynamic processes of reconfiguring eulogistic repertoires in changing social contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Bereavement is one of the most emotionally intense situations healthcare staff can find themselves in and requires extensive communication training to work in. While other healthcare staff receive specific training in bereavement, clinical photographers do not receive much, if any, in the form of bereavement communication training. The lack of training can lead to clinical photographers feeling ill-prepared to communicate with bereaved parents. This paper aims to identify if clinical photographers feel there is a need for training or written guidance and what they would wish to see included within it. A questionnaire was distributed to clinical photographers via the Institute of Medical Illustrators to gather opinions, results indicate that the majority feel there is a need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the visual and verbal representation of the Holocaust in Israeli schoolbooks. The relations between images and texts or captions are revealed through a multimodal discourse analysis. Most photographs were transposed to Israeli schoolbooks, unattributed and de-contextualized, from Nazi archives and amateur albums. These photographs have become the icons of the Holocaust, and even the Holocaust itself, or its simulacra, for post-memory generations. Therefore, the perpetrator’s perspective often comes through as objective and factual. Schoolbooks transform these photographs to educational resources, or to means by which the state educates its young to remember. The question is, how do these images construct what the students need to remember or rather, what meaning are students prompted to make of them? In the schoolbooks, the photographs illustrate the Zionist narrative “from Holocaust to resurrection” in which the state of Israel is presented as the alternative to another Holocaust. The annihilation is graphically described in detail, but the annihilated are not narrated. Most are presented only as icons of the “final solution” and specimens of categories. This representation attests to an interest to traumatize, not to inspire mourning or arouse empathy and reverence towards the victims “we don’t want to become again”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, a pediatric hospice in Ottawa, Ontario, implemented a Virtual Bereavement Group Program, necessitating a reorganization of care delivery during the global crisis. This paper outlines the program and assesses the feedback of families who participated in the program following the death of a child or grandchild. Participants expressed high levels of satisfaction, indicating its potential as an effective approach for pediatric bereavement care beyond the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Failure to deal with the issue of collective and social loss increases the risk of extreme nationalism. When taken too far, a repetition of manic defence can arise that manifests itself in the form of war. In this paper, the notion of the "inability to mourn" by the German Psychoanalysts A. and M. Mitshcerlich (1967) is discussed in relation to the problem of Japan's post World War II nationalism, and its silence on social matters. The process of confronting past atrocities committed by the state is then discussed from the perspective of structural theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiencing the ghosts of the departed is a common, cross-cultural experience of grief; such interactions are part of so-called externalized continuing bonds and represent an ongoing relationship with the departed. This paper characterizes people's reported supernatural experiences with the spirits of their deceased dogs and analyzes them in the context of bereavement, externalized continuing bonds, and disenfranchised grief. Using a thematic analysis, 544 candid online comments from social media where people shared their supernatural experiences were studied. These comments fell into two major themes with six subthemes: physical experiences (hearing, seeing, and touching the ghost of a dog) and interpreted experiences (seeing signs in nature, receiving visits from the deceased dog in dreams, and attributing feelings and phenomena to the spirit of the dog). How people described the feelings associated with these supernatural visits were also studied; three themes were found: Positive Feelings, Mixed to Sad Feelings, and Messages. The vast majority of reported feelings (74.6%) were positive, bringing people comfort, reassurance, and a sense of protection. While psychology largely characterizes externalized continuing bonds – particularly seeing ghosts – as negative and even maladaptive, this is in conflict with the findings. These supernatural experiences may serve a different role for grieving dog guardians. Given that disenfranchised grief is common due to the lack of cultural support for people mourning their dogs, and grief over companion animals is often complicated by guilt, these supernatural experiences may serve as an important source of comfort and a way for the bereaved to engage with loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although as a response to the New Cross and Grenfell Tower fires Jay Bernard's collection Surge (2019) engages with the themes of loss and mourning, no critical attempt has been made to approach this complex sequence of poems from the perspective of the poetic elegy. This paper argues that reading Surge as a neo-elegy sheds light on Bernard's intervention in current discourses on the grievability of Black lives in order to carry out their work of mournful protest. I intend to show the ways in which Surge endorses and enhances the ethico-political purpose and innovative expansiveness – regarding time, voice, and place – that characterize the contemporary Black elegy to address the past and ongoing struggles of the Black British community. Even if rooted in British postcolonial history, Bernard's project in Surge resonates with the concerns of the Black Lives Matter global movement and the body of Black elegiac poetry developing around it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]