The impact of expressive storytelling on grieving: how narrative writing can help us actively and effectively process and reconcile the loss of a loved one

ABSTRACT

After my father's death, writing became a tool to alleviate my suffering. Using evocative autoethnography, I examined if written, first-person storytelling that leaned on expressive writing techniques could help me actively process and effectively move through my complicated mourning. My data consisted of 41 stories (published as The Revelations of Eapen) that disclosed the cultural interactions of bereavement while narrating the wildness of prolonged grief. Removing myself as the protagonist, I looked at the writing through a scientific lens. I discovered the writing was constructed using two central themes, targeting bereavement: the art of storytelling and the four cornerstones of grief stories. This article explores my analysis, providing a framework for therapeutic storytelling that can be used to reconcile grief.

KEYWORDS:

• Expressive storytelling
• prolonged or complicated grief
• therapeutic writing
• grief story
• adaptation to loss
• reconciliation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Linita Eapen Mathew

Linita Eapen Mathew is an English and mental health support teacher in Calgary, Alberta. She is the author of Life: To Be Given Back Again to Whence It Came and The Revelations of Eapen, both academic memoirs of her experiences with death and prolonged grief.