Fewer and fewer rules for dealing with grief. “Do you text someone who has lost a loved one?” | public academy of social sciences

The mother monkey lost her baby. She carried it on her back for days. The other monkeys took care of her, brought food and water. After a while the baby monkey began to shrivel, to smell. Other monkeys were affected. They brought the mother less food, tried to get her to leave the corpse.

“Heartbreaking, and yet beautiful to see,” says psychologist Jos de Keijser, who specializes in complex grief. He describes the scenes from a film by primate researcher Frans de Waal that he sometimes uses in his lectures. “Students are always very touched by those monkeys. More than when it comes to grieving people, strangely enough.”

What the film is about is how social beings resolve the loss of a loved one in the group. How important comfort and care are, and how the group also sets a limit after the comfort: there comes a point at which you have to move on despite the grief.

“People do the same. Bring food, spontaneously come by with pots of soup. Even then there comes a time when the neighbor says: “Wouldn’t it be good if you cooked yourself again?”

‘Too bad I have to call it that’

Grieving is part of life. Grief over the loss of a loved one is quite normal. How you deal with it differs per person, per culture, per period. We used to have clearer mourning rituals in faith and in traditional communities, sees philosopher Christoph Jedan, who specializes in mourning culture. Nowadays, people who suffer from grief are more likely to see a psychologist and prolonged grief is classified as a disorder.

The latter is sometimes surprising. Mourning is sadness, isn’t it a disease? “I regret that I sometimes have to call it that,” says De Keijser.

Jos de Keijser and Christoph Jedan will speak next Tuesday (May 9) during the public academy of social sciences of the University of Groningen and Newspaper of the North about grief as a social and psychological phenomenon. This will include the question of whether it is right that problematic grief is now seen as a psychological disorder.

“Grief is not a disease,” says De Keijser. “However, about 10 percent of the bereaved are faced with complex grief, which is difficult to get out of without professional help. That’s why I’m glad that complex grief is in the DSM [internationaal handboek voor psychische aandoeningen, red.] is included as a disease. Only then will health insurers reimburse the treatment. It is mainly a financial story.”

Seneca: ‘You are stronger than you think’

Historically, it is not new either, says Jedan. “Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers saw mourning as an impairment of health. They did not come with pills, but entered into a conversation.”

Jedan likes to quote the Roman philosopher Seneca, who also wrote about loss. “In a beautiful letter to a grieving mother, for example, he tries to hold up a mirror to her. “You handled your father’s forced suicide so courageously,” he writes to her. “Now that your son is dead, you break down. But you’re stronger than you think.’ He points to her resilience, to the other children and grandchildren who need her.”

With the advance of Christianity, it became the priests and ministers who talked to mourners and offered comfort through faith (‘she is now with God’). They also tried to intervene if people could no longer function due to grief (the so-called talking cure ).

Fixed mourning patterns have disappeared

The fact that this role now mainly lies with psychologists does not mean that we have started to view death and mourning differently, Jedan thinks. What has changed is that due to the disappearance of beliefs, rituals and traditions, we no longer have clear rules of behavior around death. What do you do if someone close to you loses a loved one? Do you immediately stand on the sidewalk, bring food, offer help, give space?

“We no longer have fixed mourning patterns. For example, we have all kinds of new communication techniques, social media, but we don’t learn how to deal with them around death. Do you text someone who has lost a loved one?

Jos de Keijser has been assisting relatives of the MH17 disaster for years. Those who lose a loved one through violence are more likely to get stuck in complex grief than when the death has a natural cause. De Keijser sees major differences in resilience among the families of MH17 victims. “That has a lot to do with how families treat each other, how the environment is. Context is so important in grieving.”

‘It looks like I’m a leper’

At the invitation of De Keijser, an expert by experience will also speak during the public academy on Tuesday. “A mother of young children whose husband committed suicide. What she encounters is that society expects her to stand up for those children. On the other hand, she experiences little social support, she notices that people avoid her because they find it difficult.”

De Keijser often hears this from relatives: the inconvenience of the environment. “It looks like I’m a leper, people often say.” That is why it is important to offer tools, and De Keijser also contributes to Sire commercials, for example, that stimulate talking about death and loss. “The starting point that we always give people is NIVEA: do not fill in for someone else . Let them know that you are there, that you would like to do something if necessary, but don’t do it unsolicited and don’t tell them how to do it.”

,,Don’t you put it too much with the next of kin?”, Jedan responds. “They have to take the step themselves to ask for help. It’s a bit different if you just bring a bowl of soup.”

De Keizer nods. “On the other hand, people can sometimes do really stupid things without being asked. For example, someone told me that she wondered what had suddenly happened to her garden. Had the neighbors mowed the grass.”

“You don’t grieve well”

The involvement of the community in the grieving process not only brings with it support but also norms: what is it really like to grieve? That can lead to judgment and stigma. It has to be finished after a year, you have to be strong for the children, you have to cry a lot, otherwise something is not right. De Keijser: “It happens that people get a kind of stamp: ‘You do not mourn well’.”

According to Jedan, communities have always had norms about how you should deal with loss – even monkeys let you know after a while that enough is enough. “That was always accompanied by social support, such as bringing food. Now that society is more individual and the communal fades into the background, you run the risk that only that normative will remain.”

Grieving help is a form of civilization

Our society is ‘task-oriented’, says De Keijser. Man is judged on the performance of his or her functions. “Take, for example, the definition of the World Health Organization. It states: if you can no longer function due to grief, it is a disease.”

It used to be the pastor who visited, now it’s employers who sound the alarm when grief lasts too long. “You can’t hide,” says Jedan.

That also has advantages. De Keijser talks about his aunt Sjaan who was in mourning for the rest of her life after the death of her husband in a train accident. “It was just like that. She was not helped with that, she was not talked about. I think that in the past a lot of suffering was hidden away because you just had to be strong. I see it as a form of civilization that people with such great grief are helped.”