Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, various planned project events have had to be postponed until we are able to meet in person. However, we are also planning a number of online events, so stay tuned!
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March 4th 2021
14.30-16.00 |
Online event
The disenfranchised grief of involuntary childlessness: A living loss that society dismisses On average, one in five women in the developed world is reaching midlife without children, 90 per cent of those not by choice, with the greater part of them childless by ‘circumstance’ rather than infertility. There are similar, if not greater numbers of childless men too. Yet despite these figures (which often come as a surprise to many), the experience of involuntary childlessness is a silent one and the non-death grief of childlessness is often missed or dismissed by grievers themselves, their families and communities, and often, sadly, by the helping professionals around them too. The grief of involuntary childlessness is a form of what Doka (1989) termed ‘disenfranchised grief’ – a grief which is not socially recognised or acceptable. In this talk, psychotherapist, author and childless campaigner Jody Day, who has worked individually and online with thousands of childless women over the last decade through her organisation ‘Gateway Women’, will share what she has learned about how to understand, support and advocate for those grieving this ‘living loss’. Further details here |
Past Events
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Nov 26th 2020
15.00-16.30 |
Online event:
The state of disbelief: A story of death, love and forgetting Psychotherapist and writer Juliet Rosenfeld will join us to discuss her moving account of bereavement and profound grief, The State of Disbelief: A Story of Death, Love and Forgetting (published February, 2020). Juliet's book details her experiences navigating the illness and death of her husband, and draws upon Freud’s essay Mourning and Melancholia. This interactive event will be chaired by members of the University of York research project ‘Grief: A Study of Human Emotional Experience’ and will give you the opportunity to hear more about Juliet’s work and pose your questions to her. |
Oct 22nd 2020
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Talk: 'Funerals from an expert perspective'
Dr. Julie Rugg, Senior Research Fellow, Cemetery Research Group, University of York Watch recording of the talk here Abstract
'Experts by experience' is a project which aimed to understand what elements of the funeral carried long-term meaning for the people involved in arranging, participating and attending them. The project conducted 50 semi-structured interviews with people who were invited to talk in detail about a death and the subsequent funeral. Respondents were not asked to choose 'bad' or 'good' funerals, and the study represents a selection of typical funerals which have taken place in England. Most respondents discussed a funeral that had happened within the last five years. The research indicates that it is important not to be prescriptive about what bereaved people 'need' from the funeral, and the funeral service itself is not necessarily the most important element of ritual activity following a death. |
25th Feb 2020
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Lecture: 'Grief and neurological impairment'
Prof. Jonathan Cole, University of Bournemouth/Clinical Neurophysiology, Poole Hospital, UK. Abstract
Definitions of grief will be explored, whether ‘normal,’ prolonged/complicated or anticipated; in terms of the classes of trigger; whether the causative event is singular or continuing; and whether grief is in the subject of the event or their carers/relatives. The psychiatric literature’s attempts to classify reactions as expected and excessive, and to tease apart grief and depression will be considered before the ways in which various neurological impairments handle grief will be discussed, (stroke, Parkinson’s, spinal cord injury). From these emerge questions rather than conclusions: should grief be discussed as a verb rather than a noun (and if so which tense?), how might normal and abnormal types be defined and treated, does grief imply a single event and loss rather than unwanted presence, and why are some people more resilient? 
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