RITUALS AND THE GRIEVING PROCESS

Abstract

Cultural and psychotherapeutic rituals are designed to aid the bereaved in grief resolution. This paper examines the function of funeral and bereavement rituals in contemporary Western society and considers the relationship between rituals and complicated and disenfranchised grief. A new model for the use of rituals in psychotherapy with the bereaved that emphasizes intrapsychic and psychosocial processes is described. Rituals are presented as vehicles for transformation and connection as well as the more commonly recognized transition.