Domains of Grief: Social
Three red flowers and one flower bud on a green stem with a blurred background.
We have covered the first two domains of grief. Let’s dive into the third, the social domain. The social domain of grief is looking at a mourner's experience engaging with the world. As was introduced in a post a few weeks ago introducing the domains of grief, there are potentially two different perspectives to consider when looking at this domain. As a reminder, the first facet is if friends and/or family withdraw due their own need to not be around grief, lack of knowledge of how to be present for someone, etc. and the result is isolation. The second facet is on the part of the person experiencing the grief and their potential reactions to socially isolate, detach, avoid reminders of the loss, or refrain from asking for support.
The First Facet
In some cultures, grief, loss, and death are not talked about much, avoided, hidden away, etc. The term that has been offered to describe this is grief-avoidant culture. In a culture like this, where the expression of grief and mourning are discouraged, people are often asked to suppress their grief or “get through” their grief quickly. People may hear phrases like “carry on, “ “keep your chin up,” or “keep going.” This example list is by no means all inclusive and many phrases and even actions could be included. Some of the consequences of this are people feeling like they have to hide their grief, which can impact the mourning and healing processes.
Why bring this up? Because when we are discussing looking at the social domain of grief we must look at context. There are other cultures that are not grief-avoidant and so the context would be different. There are even individual families and communities that are not grief-avoidant. However, since this blog post is written in the context of the United States, the focus is on how the dominant culture frequently shows up as grief-avoidant.
Thus, if many people grew up in a grief-avoidant society, they likely have not learned how to be present with someone who is mourning a loss. They may have not had the opportunity to learn the skills. Additionally, when we take into consideration family cultures, we learn from our family and if our families did not allow for grief expression, emotional expression, or uncomfortable experiences, people also missed out on the opportunity to learn. That is not to say that people learn in other contexts like school, therapy, etc.
So when someone in one’s life is grieving, it can bring up uncomfortable things or thoughts about not knowing what to do or say, not knowing how to be in the presence of grief, fear of making things worse, not wanting to be near someone grief to maintain a homeostasis or bring up any of their feelings of grief, etc. This list could continue. This is when people may withdraw from people who are grieving, potentially leaving them feeling isolated and alone when they may need support more than ever.
While we did not discuss this in-depth, it is important to acknowledge that disenfranchised grief, ambiguous loss, etc. also impact people’s ability to engage. For example, when someone dies by suicide, there is still stigma associated with the death and some people and organizations will pull away. This topic is intense and very worthy of further discussion. We may see this come back in another blog post so that we can do this topic justice!
The Second Facet
Each person has different experiences, personalities, view points, etc., that make them uniquely them. Thus, each person responds differently to grief and expresses their grief via mourning differently. There are themes that researchers and clinicians have discovered and noticed, respectively. However, there is still room for individual experiences. People in grief may socially isolate, detach, avoid reminders of the loss, or refrain from asking for support. The key word here is “may.” Not everyone does. These are simply possible reactions. Let’s use avoiding reminders of the loss as our example to explore.
Maybe there was a favorite place that a person used to go with their father that, when the person sees or goes near, brings up those memories. This same person, after their father died, struggles with the loss of not having their father there on a daily basis. Depending on the person and their skills with emotional regulation, ability to tolerate uncomfortable feelings, readiness to face the loss, etc., this person could decide to avoid going near that place. When that happens, they no longer have the social support of the other people who used to engage with them at that place. This example may be overly simplistic and could also not be just because of a death as their other types of losses like incarceration of a parent. The idea is that engagement changes.
We have looked at two different facets of the social domain of grief. Both provide opportunities for us to engage in reflection about our own experiences of grief and how we engage with others when we are in grief and with others who are in grief. Humans are born social creatures. It is how we survive. Think of Porges Polyvagal Theory as an example. There is an unresearched “rule” called the Rule of Thirds that many people find from experience. There are a third of people who will neither help or hurt you. There are a third of people who will be unsupportive and maybe cause some hurt. And finally, there are a third of people who will be supportive and helpful. When in grief seek out the third who will be supportive and keep them close.
take action today moment:
Take the time to reflect on your own experiences of grief and how you engage with others who are in grief and how you engage with others when you are in grief as suggested above. Just notice with no judgement. What did you learn?