DABDA: this is the formula taught to
medical students and grief counsellors the world over, since these five stages
of grieving were identified in 1969 by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book On
Death and Dying. This advance in thanatological literature did much to
illuminate what had become an embarrassing situation for dying patients and
their families alike. Death in our society, after all, has been a somewhat
awkward life event, treated in subdued tones behind closed doors. With the
advent of research and the institution of counselling sessions for those who
have suffered the death of a friend, spouse, parent or child, the five stages
of grieving have almost become the bench-mark for the emotional process of
facing death.  Non-traditional responses to death have, contrarily, included
relief and sometimes, even, joyfulness. Instead of welcoming these positive
responses, many researchers and clinicians view non-traditional grievers as
exhibiting denial.

The authors Elison and McGonigle of Liberating
Losses (p. 80) put it this way:

The field of grief therapy has been dominated by
a few well-known researchers who have seen non-traditional grievers as not
quite right. Rather than ask whether the griever might have good reasons for
feeling relieved, grief studies have tended to come from the viewpoint that
there is a "right way" to grieve, because it’s the way most people
grieve. This point of view has disenfranchised many perfectly healthy people.

This is the lynchpin of this
book; the point of departure from more traditional books on the death
response.  The title Liberating Losses is itself refreshing. Using
autobiography and other case studies, the authors contest this common thesis as
well as the dominant theories about the nature of relationship and attachment.
At the heart of the Kubler-Ross inspired thesis about grief lies the idea
developed by the British psychologist John Bowlby who developed in the 1960s
the concept of attachment.  He believed that a baby by being cuddled and
comforted formed an attachment to her parents because they were the source of
security, thus developing in her an emotional attachment and a love
relationship. The crying and searching response of the baby when separated
constituted, for Bowlby, the grief response.  The lack of grief response was
seen by Bowlby as a sign that the person was psychologically incapable of
forming attachments because of suppressed emotion.

From the sense of security in the emotional
attachment of infancy comes the love response of adulthood, according to this
theory. The relationship of a friend, lover, or spouse recapitulates the
infant-parent attachment so that their death predicates the loss of emotional
security. If the person did not grieve in the way expected, then suspicion was
cast upon the person, or at very least, upon the nature of the relationship. As
Elison and McGonigle point out, this rather simplifies the complexity of human
relationships. It also diminishes the capacity of love to extend beyond
infantile attachment. May not someone love another without needing them for
security? May not a relationship fluctuate between love and hate? May not a
person die in stages and that a final cessation of being be greeted with relief
and not grief?  Maybe the loved one died after a lengthy illness (as in the
case of McGonigle with regard to the loss of her husband after fifteen years
with a debilitating illness), or the situation where one’s spouse dies suddenly
after an argument, or in Elison’s case, after she told him of her intention to
divorce him. One may indeed have felt deep love in all cases, but the release
from a profoundly difficult situation may well elicit plain relief rather than
grief.

There is considerable social pressure brought
upon those who experience relief, rather than grief €“ such is the pressure of
the social expectations encapsulated in the DABDA concept €“ so that they
may go on to wonder about the authenticity of their own responses. Perhaps
there is something wrong with them, perhaps they ought to feel pain. 
Perversely, such a response to social conditioning has been read by some
psychologists as indicating a deficit in identity and self-esteem. Others
suggest that the silence of a response or plain relief hides inner turmoil. 
How hard it is, therefore, to be honest about one’s emotions and how liberating
it is to read accounts documented in this important book where such emotions are
freely expressed. Losses can be liberating. Relationships can journey further
than the simple love=attachment theorem. These messages should form the
starting points for further research in the fields of thanatology and
relationship studies. Highly recommended.

© 2004 Elizabeth McCardell

Elizabeth
McCardell, PhD, Independent scholar, Australia.

Categories: Grief