‘Bereavement’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life

The point of contemplating our future death is to bring us back to a vivid consciousness of the here and now. The purpose is to clarify the choices we have, to have a sense of our priorities so that we can take steps to shape our lives around them.

Dr Simon has asked me to thank you for all your comments on his recent posts about distortions of thinking. Due to a bereavement, Dr Simon won’t be able to respond right away, but he hopes to be able to catch up again after Christmas.

For neurotics, behavior such as denial is an unconscious defense mechanism that protects against the experience of unbearable pain. With disordered characters, what we commonly perceive as unconscious defenses (e.g., denial) are more often deliberate tactics of impression-management, manipulation, and responsibility-avoidance.

Somehow I managed to ride through the shock, the agony, the chaos and emptiness and finally a kind of saying goodbye, and a kind of acceptance, and she fell into a different place in my life. But now, a few months on — after all that work I did — she’s still dead!

Is this what therapy is about — just removing what is holding us back, what stops us growing properly, what hides our beauty and is sometimes downright painful? Well, if nothing was planted in the first place, then removing the weeds would only make room for more weeds…