Narratives of Loss: Exploring Grief through Photography
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/qs.v6i1.124433Keywords:
Grief, Self-narrative, Continuing bonds, Meaning-making, Photographs, Photo-productionAbstract
Grief is not an exclusively private and intrapsychic phenomenon but a dynamic process whereby the bereaved negotiates the meaning of the loss in a way that may challenge his/her personal self-narrative. Drawing on a social constructionist model of grief, this paper features a case study where we analyse narratives of mourning elicited through a personal photographic project. The visual-based narrative methodology used in our study (photo-production) not only allows for multi-modal forms of expression and communication in the study of grief, but it also serves as an aid for individuals to scaffold further meaning-making processes which cannot be conveyed through narrative alone. The paper concludes with an invitation to reflect on the use of photography as both a possible methodological tool to explore narratives of grief and a therapeutic tool for the construction of meanings and continuing bonds with the deceased.
References
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Reavey, P. (2011). The Return to Experience: Psychology and the Visual. In P. Reavey (Ed.), Visual Methods in Psychology. Using and Interpreting Images in Qualitative Research (pp. 1-14). Taylor & Francis.
Renzenbrink, I. (2014). Photographic Metaphor. In B. E. Thompson & R. A. Neimeyer (Eds.), Grief and the Expressive Arts. Practices for Creating Meaning (pp. 198–201). Routledge.
Sitvast, J. E., & Abma, T. A. (2012). The Photo-Instrument as a Health Care Intervention. Health Care Analysis, 20(2), 177-195.
Strouse, S. (2014). Collage: Integrating the Torn Pieces. In B. E. Thompson & R. A. Neimeyer (Eds.), Grief and the Expressive Arts. Practices for Creating Meaning (pp. 186-197). Routledge.
Stutey, D., Helm, H., LoSSasso, H., & Kreider, H. (2015). Play Therapy and Photo-Elicitation: A Narrative Examination of Children’s Grief. International Journal of Play Therapy, 25(3), 154-165.
Thompson, B. & Neimeyer, R. (2014). Grief and the Expressive Arts. Practices for Creating Meaning. Routledge.
Vygotsky, L. (1987). The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky. Volume 4: The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions. Plenum Press.
Wagoner, B., Brescó, I., & Awad, S.H. (2019). Remembering as a Sociocultural Process. Springer.
Weiskittle, R., & Gramling, S. (2018). The Therapeutic Effectiveness of Using Visual Art Modalities with the Bereaved: a Systematic Review. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 11, 9-24.
Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge University Press.
Brescó, I., Wagoner, B., & Herbig, L. (2020). Memorials, movement and the method of subjective cameras: A multimodal study of person-environment interactions. The Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section Bulletin, 30, 7-17.
Brinkmann, S., Brescó, I., Kofod, E. H., Køster, A., Overvad, A., Petersen, A., Shur, A., Tateo, L., Wagoner, B. & Winther-Lindqvist, D. A. (2019). The Presence of Grief: Research-Based Art and Arts-Based Research on Grief. Qualitative Inquiry, 25(9-10), 915–924.
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Harvard University Press.
Creighton, G., Oliffe, JL., Butterwick, S., & Saewyc, E. (2013). After the Death of a Friend: Young Men's Grief and Masculine Identities. Social Science and Medicine, 84, 35-43.
Cronin, O. (1998). Psychology and Photographic Theory. In J. Prosser (Ed.), Image-Based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers (pp. 69–83). Falmer Press.
Cronin, O., & Gale, A. (1996). Photographs and the Therapeutic Process. Clinical Psychology Forum, 89, 24-28.
Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the Self. University of Massachusetts Press.
Frisina, P. G., Borod, J. C., Lepore, S. J. (2004). A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Written Emotional Disclosure on the Health Outcomes of Clinical Populations’. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 192, 629-634.
Frith, H. (2011). Narrating Biographical Disruption and Repair: Exploring the Place of Absent Images in Women’s Experiences of Cancer and Chemotherapy. In P. Reavey (Ed.), Visual Methods in Psychology. Using and Interpreting Images in Qualitative Research (pp. 55-68). Taylor & Francis.
Gamino, L. A. (2012). Opening the Family Photo Album. In R. Neimeyer (Ed.), Techniques of Grief Therapy: Creative Practices for Counseling the Bereaved (pp. 231-233). Routledge.
Gibson, M. (2008). Objects of the Dead. Mourning and Memory in Everyday Life. Melbourne University Press.
Gillies, J., Neimeyer, R. A. (2006). Loss, Grief and the Search for Significance: Toward a Model of Meaning Reconstruction in Bereavement. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 19, 31-65.
Harper, D. (2002). Talking About Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation. Visual Studies, 17(1), 13- 26.
Kim, J. (2016). Understanding Narrative Inquiry. Sage.
Klass, D., Silverman, P. R., & Nickman, S. L. (Eds.) (1996). Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Taylor & Francis.
Kübler-Ross, E. (1991). On Life after Death. Celestial Arts.
Maria [pseudonym] (2019). Un Proyecto Personal en Marcha [A Personal Project Underway]. Unpublished work. Open University of Catalonia.
Marzal, J. (2010). Cómo se lee una fotografía. Interpretaciones de la mirada [How to read a photograph. Interpretations of the Gaze]. Cátedra.
Neimeyer, R. A. (2012). Retelling the Narrative of the Death. In B. E. Thompson & R. A.
Neimeyer (Eds.), Grief and the Expressive Arts. Practices for Creating Meaning (pp. 86-90). Routledge.
Neimeyer, R.A., Baldwin, S.A., & Gillies, J. (2006). Continuing Bonds and Reconstructing Meaning: Mitigating Complications in Bereavement. Death Studies, 30, 715-738.
Neimeyer, R., Klass, D., & Dennis, M. R. (2014). A Social Constructionist Account of Grief: Loss and the Narration of Meaning. Death Studies, 38, 485-498.
Payàs, A. (2017). Las Tareas del Duelo [The tasks of Grief] (7th Edition). Paidós.
Radley, A. & Taylor, D. (2003) Remembering One’s Stay in Hospital: a Study in Photography, Recovery and Forgetting. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 7, 129–159.
Reavey, P. (2011). The Return to Experience: Psychology and the Visual. In P. Reavey (Ed.), Visual Methods in Psychology. Using and Interpreting Images in Qualitative Research (pp. 1-14). Taylor & Francis.
Renzenbrink, I. (2014). Photographic Metaphor. In B. E. Thompson & R. A. Neimeyer (Eds.), Grief and the Expressive Arts. Practices for Creating Meaning (pp. 198–201). Routledge.
Sitvast, J. E., & Abma, T. A. (2012). The Photo-Instrument as a Health Care Intervention. Health Care Analysis, 20(2), 177-195.
Strouse, S. (2014). Collage: Integrating the Torn Pieces. In B. E. Thompson & R. A. Neimeyer (Eds.), Grief and the Expressive Arts. Practices for Creating Meaning (pp. 186-197). Routledge.
Stutey, D., Helm, H., LoSSasso, H., & Kreider, H. (2015). Play Therapy and Photo-Elicitation: A Narrative Examination of Children’s Grief. International Journal of Play Therapy, 25(3), 154-165.
Thompson, B. & Neimeyer, R. (2014). Grief and the Expressive Arts. Practices for Creating Meaning. Routledge.
Vygotsky, L. (1987). The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky. Volume 4: The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions. Plenum Press.
Wagoner, B., Brescó, I., & Awad, S.H. (2019). Remembering as a Sociocultural Process. Springer.
Weiskittle, R., & Gramling, S. (2018). The Therapeutic Effectiveness of Using Visual Art Modalities with the Bereaved: a Systematic Review. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 11, 9-24.
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Published
2021-01-21
How to Cite
Jiménez-Alonso, B., & de Luna, I. B. (2021). Narratives of Loss: Exploring Grief through Photography. Qualitative Studies, 6(1), 91–115. https://doi.org/10.7146/qs.v6i1.124433
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