1 Introduction 17activity” (p. 496) during which grievers work to make meaning of their loved
one’s life, to find their current place in a changed social context, and to per-
form (or resist performing) grief in ways consistent with the relevant cultural
context.
The narrative tradition of therapy (White & Epston, 1990) grew from
social constructionist and postmodern understandings and is predicated on
each individual developing his or her own story with the help of the therapist.
A narrative project, making meaning of the deceased’s life, death, and relation-
ships is viewed as critical to processing grief (Neimeyer, 2001). Along with the
evolution of this meaning-making approach to grief work, grief theorists and
practitioners began to question classic models and templates for grief. Social
constructionism and postmodernism more generally imply that no individ-
ual’s grief must follow a certain pre-set path; further, decathexis, resolution
and/or acceptance should not be envisioned as desired outcomes for all griev-
ers. This allowed Klass, Silverman, and Nickman (1996) to theorize what many
mourners had been saying all along: the end of active grieving does not have
to entail a detachment from the deceased. Most often, it entails continuing
bonds, which change in quality. Foote and Frank (1999) assert that postmod-
ern meaning-making approaches provide a basis for resistance to disciplin-
ing grief—at least until those strategies too are institutionalized and become a
form of policing grief.
Another construct often used in the context of grief, and which must be
challenged for many reasons, is the notion of “closure.” In connection with the
stage of “acceptance” that Kübler-Ross proposed, many have come to believe
that closure is necessary for grievers to heal. Even if one sets aside the idea that
acceptance is the desired outcome of grief, the construct of closure is knotty
when explored through a sociological lens (Berns, 2011). “Closure” arose in
the popular narrative during the 1990s and developed multiple meanings, all
of which reflected the hope of grievers to be relieved of pain and suffering
after a loss. Perhaps most insidious (if predictable), closure came to justify
myriad commercial endeavors from “burials” in space to “diamonds” made
of cremains (Berns, 2011). Berns notes that the word “closure” is used to mean
closing a chapter, remembering, forgetting, getting even, knowing, confess-
ing, and forgiving; such broad usage allows many services and products to
be sold—and laws to be made—in pursuit of closure. Yet as a concept, closure
is as slippery and suspect as most other “natural” outcomes of grief. Just as
Klass (2013) recently cautioned not to assume all grief leads to growth (2013),
we emphasize that not all loss experiences (nor even most) will or should lead
to closure.
The following postmodern, conceptual approaches to grief work allow
grievers and supporters to tailor their interventions, avoid thrusting uniform
models on grievers, and support therapeutic or informal healing strategies
without insisting on closure or acceptance.
Dual Process Model
A deceptively simple grief theory came from the work of Stroebe and Schut
(1999): their theory met the criteria for a postmodern grief theory that is not