The Role of Communication and Story Telling in the Family Grieving System

Abstract

Few experiences are more difficult for a family than grieving the loss of a loved one. With the goal of developing a conceptual foundation for future research, this review examines the crucial role of communicative processes and story telling in grieving and bereavement. Some of the scholarship that is reviewed reports empirical investigation; other work is more anecdotal or experiential, as is often the case in the medical, nursing, and psychoanalytic literature. After outlining the nature of grief, the review focuses on sense-making through communication and story telling. It then discusses (a) specific contexts of grieving, including the family in general; (b) concerns relevant to children; (c) issues particularly relevant to adolescents, parental death or coping with parental death; (d) the impact on the marital dyad; and (e) perinatal death and miscarriage.