“I recommend anti-depressants.” A study in the social denial of death

Abstract

In this article I intend to address the topic of psycho-social interaction with bereaved relatives after the unnatural death of a loved one in Germany. The article raises methodological questions of the connection between affectedness and analytical resources in death studies and tries to combine both approaches. Inverting the classical observational stance in victims’ studies, as a mourner, I could watch and feel the others’ fear and pain “regarding the pain of others.” Susan Sontag’s moral analysis is taken as a second-order observation while the observational position in this case, is one of stronger instead of lower emotional attachment.

Notes

1 The course was prepared by Prof. Jalid Sehouli and Dr. Christine Klapp, Charité, and took place in Berlin (spring 2019) at a Berlin hospital and the Police Academy. As a principal investigator I had finished my ERC-financed Proof of concept Death notification with responsibility. A Blended Learning Course for German Police (DNR, 754949). As the classroom learning included policemen and medical staff, I was offered to present the digital tool to them and was asked to observe and evaluate the whole training course in order to develop conceptual ideas for an e-learning course for doctors.

2 “Not only reason, not passion alone, but both of them together, uniting their insufficient clarity to explore this unknown abyss, the misery of others.” (Tillion 2009, my translation)

3 “I call denial pact the generic intermediary formation which, in any relationship—whether it is a couple, a group, a family or an institution—dedicated to the purpose of repulsion, denial or disallowance, or maintains in the unrepresented and the imperceptible, which would call into question the formation and maintenance of this relationship and the investments to which it is the object” (Kaës 2009, my translation).