The Tie That Binds

In the previous post, I shared the current psychological assessment of continuing bonds with the deceased.  In the Culture of Bereavement Orthodoxy, with its continuing Freudian framework, such continuing bonds are by definition pathological and must be severed if there is to be healthy recovery.  

Attachment theory (following John Bowlby and others) suggests a more complex view of continuing bonds.  There are dual processes at work--gradual deconstruction of the former relationship with the deceased loved one and reconstruction of life and identity (and hope) that includes a different and non-physical bond with the deceased loved one.

Are there indications that the continuing bonds are not unfolding in a healthy and life-giving way?  Nigel Field summarizes some of the research and thought in this regard.  We all know that loss and grief can be experienced in settings that don't involve death.  It is separation from the one we love that initiates the experience of loss and feelings of bereavement.  When we experience that separation, we engage in "search behavior" to restore the relationship.

Field points to how we all keep some of our deceased loved one's possessions just as they were before she or he died.  

"Maintaining the deceased's possessions exactly as they were prior to death also may reveal expectations and hope that he or she will return.  These CB [continuing bonds] expressions reflect a working model of attachment to the deceased that as yet has not assimilated the reality of the death...these expressions are understandable early on after a death as a natural response to the separation and thus should not be interpreted as pathological" (Handbook of Bereavement Research and Practice, page 120).

This is where most of us start our process.  We can't let everything go at once, and we shouldn't.  It takes time and experience, tears and remembering, anger and gratitude, before we can let go of these "search behaviors."  It is not pathology or lack of faith or denial.  This is what we do, for a while.

If these behaviors continue, however, then we are not engaging in healthy reconstruction.  Field reviews the literature of attachment theory which "suggests that the failure to maintain a clear boundary between the living and the dead, such that the experience of CB is segregated from the knowledge that the other is dead, is the key factor in determining whether a CB expression indicates an unresolved loss" (page 123).

If our efforts to maintain the memories of our loved one help us to deny that our loved one has died, then we may have some issues to address.  Sometimes we are so desperate for our loved ones that we create a "denial zone" in our thinking for them--a little space where we can try to believe that they haven't died.  That is the "segregated knowledge" Field mentions.  If our memorial caches are tools for maintaining that illusion for a long period of time, then our grief is not moving toward healing.

Field also summarizes the understanding of how the continuing bonds may affect our understanding and decisions.  Anne was in charge of the day to day "business" of our household.  I knew I couldn't do it exactly the way she had done it.  I did find it helpful, however, to stick with systems she had put in place.  I did find it helpful to ask myself, "How would Anne handle this?"  I did find myself at some moments of despair and confusion crying out, "Anne, what should I do now?"

Those were healthy expressions of grief and continuing bonds.  I don't continue those expressions now (although I use her filing system for tax records and it works well).  I have reorganized my life and let go of all but a few items in my memorial cache.  The relationship we have--now as sister and brother in Christ forever--continues.  It has been reorganized, however.  

And as a Christian, I know that it has been reorganized on the basis of Jesus Christ.  So it is a connection for all eternity.  That connection is not as husband and wife.  That relationship was for this life only.  The real continuing bond we have is in the Lord, and that transcends all our human connections.