The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss

by Mary-Frances O'Connor

The hero (griever) enters an unfamiliar and terrifying world, and after an arduous journey, returns transformed, with new wisdom. The journey is composed of a series of nearly impossible obstacles (stages) to be overcome, making the hero noble when they succeed in their quest. Holland and Neimeyer put this well: “the seemingly magnetic draw of a stage-like depiction of grieving that begins with a disorienting separation from the ‘normal,’ pre-bereavement world, and that progresses heroically through a series of clearly marked emotional trials before eventuating in a triumphant stage of acceptance, recovery, or symbolic return, may owe more to its compelling coherence with a seemingly universal narrative structure than to its objective accuracy.”