Western culture can be described as death-denying and youth-obsessed. Yet this has not always been the case. Only a few generations ago, death was very much part of life where people died at home with their families members caring for them. A shift occurred, in part, because of the unprecedented advances in medical science that the western world has seen over the past 40 years. Health care professionals now have the knowledge and the technology to prolong life in ways that (...) were previously not only unattainable, but inconceivable. Regardless, the reality that death will eventually come for each of us has not changed; merely our perception of it has. This perception is influenced by the hidden nature of death in our society. This begs the questions: if death in our culture is something to hide, to conceal, and to keep secret, then what does that say about our ability to express grief? What does this mean for those who face it as part of their chosen profession? How might we understand the nature of suffering for those who turn toward the suffering of others? This paper interpretively examines the nature of hidden death and hidden grief in our society. (shrink)

Analogies of grief to amputation and phantom limb are common in memoirs and literary accounts of loss.1 Consider, for example, C. S. Lewis's response to the suggestion that he will "get over" the loss of his wife, in A Grief Observed: Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he's had his leg off it is quite another. … There will be (...) hardly any moment when he forgets it. … His whole way of life will be changed. … At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again.2 As Matthew Ratcliffe has argued, though such references may... (shrink)

In this paper, the author turns to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics to examine the experience of grieving. Specifically, the author argues that grieving may be grasped as a limit situation of memory. This approach suggests that grieving cannot be adequately captured by a stage model theory but, instead, poses an infinite task that is fraught with difficulty and ethical demands. The author develops this approach in reference not only to Hans-Georg Gadamer but recent research by Nancy Moules and Kate Beamer.

The research questions was: 'How do psychiatrists describe their responses to patients' suicidal deaths in the light of a published model of consolation?' The textual data (n = 5) was a subset of a larger (n = 19) study. Thematic analysis showed a main theme, 'unburdening grief', and six themes. Embedded in the results is a story about suffering that reveals that, through ethical reflectiveness, a meaning of suffering can be recreated that unburdens grief and opens up new understandings with (...) and among disciplines. This can help to prepare health professionals to respond to people who suffer because of suicidal death. (shrink)

In this article, I explore aspects of grief and the surprising mirroring of hermeneutic research and the experience of grief. Neither grief or hermeneutic research are predictable, formulaic, or without surprises, and both require patience, humility, and an openness to what comes to greet us in the nature of aletheia.