Cures for the heart: a poetic approach to healing after loss

ABSTRACT

Writing creatively, expressively, and reflectively to aid the grieving process is founded on the idea that in order to survive and thrive after loss, personal meaning must be made of what has been suffered. The individualisation and secularisation of society has put the onus of meaning making on the individual while an abiding reservation about speaking openly about death in Western culture complicates this task. In this article we examine how metaphors are used to make sense of loss and its ensuing emotions and how they help the writer move from a ‘first’ (i.e. anguish, pain) to a ‘second’ story (i.e. healing). We argue also that evoking the beloved through writing is part of healthy grieving. We conclude that nudging, thread and crystalising metaphors as well as ‘poetic conversations’ – that help locate and position oneself in relation to the loss – together make constructing new life-giving (i.e. second) stories possible. The safety and privacy of writing is also key in making space for the voice of the bereaved. We note that grieving individuals ‘write about’ and ‘write to’ and thus evoke the person who has died. In this paradoxical way the bereaved face the reality of death by retaining the loved one.

KEYWORDS:

• Grief
• bereavement
• narrative methods
• poetry
• expressive writing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Patricia A. McClocklin is a Master of Arts — Integrated Studies (MAIS) graduate student with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Athabasca University in Canada.

Reinekke Lengelle, PhD is a visiting graduate professor with Athabasca University and a researcher with sustainable Talent Development at The Hague University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands.