Solace and immortality: Bereaved parents' continuing bond with their children

Abstract

How do bereaved parents find solace in the face of irreparable loss? The essay grows out of a 10-year ethnographic study of a chapter of the Compassionate Friends, a self-help group. A recurring pattern is that long-term solace is intertwined with parents' continuing interaction with the inner representation of their dead child. The essay examines the nature of solace, reviews literature on inner representations of the dead, examines ways parents find solace connected with interaction with the inner representation, explores the shared inner representation as a significant element in social support, discusses solace in terms of the psychosocial meaning of immortality, and draws implications for clinicians.

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