Meaningful mourning: A Psychodynamic Approach

This chapter aims to clarify the relationship between people’s inner and outerworlds in the context of mourning. How people relate psychologically notonly to the object of mourning but also to their environment in the event ofloss deserves more attention both in the academic study of mourning processes and in effective counselling. In current theorization and counselling,psychological and social theories about mourning often remain unconnected. Whereas most psychologists tend to focus on intra-personal processes,different socio-cultural circumstances inform the sources that people drawon to make sense of loss in their lives. Therefore, I suggest to combine socalled constructional models of mourning with object relational theory todevelop a more adequate theoretical framework and model to work with incounselling. The first perspective emphasizes an active construction of reality; the second adds the impact of important attachment relationships duringthe construction of these representations of reality. By explicitly linking anintra-psychic model to the social-cultural context, psychological and socialaspects of mourning can be seen connected by concentrating on (religious)meaning- making that can be experienced in what Winnicott has coined “thespace in between”. Different aspects of the diverse theories involved are illustrated by the case story of Geertje, who got stuck in her process of makingsense of the loss of her still born child many years ago, and turned to a professional spiritual caregiver for help.

originally published as: Muthert, H. (2021) Bridging inner and outer worlds: A psychodynamic approach to meaningful mourning. In P. Berger, M. Buitelaar, & K. Knibbe (Eds.), Religion as relation: Studying religion in context (pp. 192-213). Equinox Publishing Ltd.