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This thesis explores the notion of 'recovery' from grief following bereavement and answers the question, what happens when people 'fail' to recover? Researchers and practitioners promote a linear, staged, 'normal course' of grief, yet people who fail to follow this course are understood as experiencing 'complicated grief: a form of psychiatric disorder. In particular, the thesis explores the debates and issues around the highly contested notion of recovery from grief, drawing on an analysis of the theory and policy of grief and recovery, and empirical qualitative interview data from bereavement care practitioners and bereaved people in England. Arguing for the acknowledgment of the experience of 'non-recovery', this thesis draws on a Foucauldian approach to problematise the notion of recovery, highlighting how 'recovery' is a socially constructed notion linked to the individualised vision of health and happiness promoted by neoliberal governmentality. The study concentrates on three areas: the political and cultural factors that 'frame' grief and recovery in England; how grief is managed, through the example of bereavement counselling, and the ways in which bereaved people make sense of grief. The findings of this study present the experience of grief as one of navigating a 'liminal space'. Recovery from grief was achieved or resisted through the negotiation of a variety of political, medical and social discourses. These discourses provided guidelines for the bereaved person, where they were encouraged to make sense of grief, engage in certain practices and work towards the building of new identities, in order to recover from grief. Further, through the incorporation of 'non-recovery' this study proposes an alternative way of theorising grief, arguing for the need to emphasise the relational and embodied aspects of grief.

The conceptual analysis and empirical research presented in this thesis explores bereavement counselling in two settings. It compares the organisation, function, practices and belief systems characteristic of bereavement counselling in Northern Ireland, a province within the United Kingdom, and the Sub-Saharan African country of Uganda. In total, 41 qualitative interviews (38 informants) were conducted with bereavement counsellors across settings, exploring their perceptions and experiences. These were thematically analysed. The findings focused on four interweaving issues: the counselling context, the characteristics of counsellors, the characteristics of clients and counselling practices. Secondary data was gathered from desk research and participant observations. The conceptual framework for this comparison combined a psychological and sociological approach, derived from a comparative analysis of the theories of Sigmund Freud and Norbert Elias. Although Freud has generated the fundamental theoretical assumptions that continue to guide bereavement counselling, Elias’s figurational framework ultimately presented a stronger explanation for, and understanding of, the contrasting characteristics of bereavement counselling in the two societies, avoiding the reified and static notions often embedded in so-called ‘cross-cultural’ research. An analysis of the findings has provided insights into the chosen theories and into bereavement counselling practices in each setting. In Uganda, Western models of counselling proved to be ethnocentric, because they are based fundamentally on working with Western notions of the presence of an individualised ego. Key features of these models appeared to require adaptation to non-Western settings. In Northern Ireland, counsellors were found to acknowledge the importance of interpersonal factors in bereavement reactions whilst working, almost exclusively, with intra-psychic processes. The levels of complexity of interdependency networks in the two settings appeared to influence counselling processes in substantially different ways.

Literature review: This systematic review synthesised and critically evaluated 34 studies, which had investigated the relationships between adult attachment dimensions and attentional processes, to test theoretical assertions of attachment-related differences in information processing. Specifically, empirical data were examined to investigate the evidence for the hyperactivating and deactivating strategies associated with attachment anxiety and avoidance, respectively. Results showed mixed empirical support for these strategies and the authors’ offered different interpretations of similar data patterns. Further methodological limitations are discussed, such as predominant recruitment from student populations, as are implications for clinical practice and future research. Research report: A cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the indirect effect of schizotypy characteristics on the relationships between adult attachment dimensions and cognitive flexibility, within a parallel mediator model. The relationships between adult attachment dimensions and schizotypy characteristics were also examined, and this study was the first to include a dimensional measure of attachment disorganisation in adulthood. Four-hundred-and-nine university students completed three online questionnaires of adult attachment dimensions and schizotypy characteristics. Subsequently, 48 of these participants agreed to complete a laboratory-based cognitive switching task, to measure attachment-related differences in cognitive flexibility. Results showed that conditions were not met for mediation analyses and therefore the parallel mediator model was not confirmed. However, attachment anxiety was strongly correlated with cognitive disorganisation, whereas attachment avoidance was strongly correlated with introvertive anhedonia. The relationships between attachment disorganisation and schizotypy were less specific. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed as are key methodological limitations, such as small number of participants for mediation analyses.

The purpose of this research is to gain an understanding of the cultural norms and community practices influencing the bereavement experiences of Romani Gypsy and Irish Traveller families in England. The aims and objectives set out to explore the impact of bereavement on individuals and wider family members. To identify whether bereavement has a long term impact on their life experiences, and to explore the extent to which membership of a close-knit family and community, with explicit cultural norms offers effective support for managing the processes of loss, or potentially exacerbates the risk of long-term complicated grief. The research was undertaken in partnership with the Child Bereavement UK and a number of Gypsy and Traveller support organisations. The study has a phenomenological paradigm and uses a narrative approach, focus groups and narrative conversations to gain an understanding of the bereavement experiences of Gypsy and Traveller women. Consideration is also given to potential bereavement support needs and how best organisations can tailor their policy and practice to meet the needs of these ‘hard to reach’ populations. Gypsies and Travellers remain one of the most marginalised ethnic minority groups in Britain. Policy enactments and a decline in stopping places have impacted on their cultural tradition of nomadism, leading to significant socioeconomic challenges and rapid cultural change in recent decades. Additionally, Gypsies and Travellers face significant health inequalities, including a reduced life expectancy of between ten to twelve years compared to ‘mainstream’ populations. Furthermore considerably higher levels of suicide, maternal and infant mortality, miscarriage and stillbirth are reported. The numerous intergenerational bereavements experienced can result in complicated and prolonged grief reactions with long term health implications including depression, anxiety and an increase in risk taking behaviours including alcohol and substance misuse. The research findings suggest that the close knit nature of Gypsy and Traveller communities means that the death of a relative is felt with great intensity, articulated by some research participants as an event that they ‘never come to terms with’. Consequently complex family relationships and stoic attitudes result in personal grief responses often becoming hidden losses as highly protective behaviours place the needs of others above that of the individual; thus family becomes a barrier rather than support mechanism following bereavement. The research offers new insights and understanding of the bereavement experiences of Gypsies and Travellers, recognising the increased vulnerability to complicate grief responses resulting from the often frequent, multiple intergenerational deaths. These findings highlight the need for specialist community bereavement support resources and services.

Here is an aberrant map that responds to and reiterates the demand to think immanence and the singular. It advocates an 'ethos without content' that generates ceaseless questioning and presents as key the philosophical notion of 'whatever-being', in order to relate the experience subtending organized and communal life, and thereby to pose a challenge to how we, as geographers, address 'being-in-common'.

Traditionally, family-centred, children's hospice care extends to parents and siblings of children with life limiting conditions. Few studies have focused on the needs of grandparents, who play an increasing role in the families of children with life limiting conditions. Aim: To explore the experience of grandparents during the life, and following the death of a grandchild with a life limiting condition. Methods: A purposive sampling technique was used to recruit participants who: (i) identified themselves as fulfilling a grandparenting role; (ii) were bereaved for between six and 24 months; (iii) had a grandchild that died from a life limiting condition. Grandparents who were the principal carers of the deceased grandchild were excluded. Semi-structured, individual, face-to-face interviews were conducted and audio- recorded in participants' own homes. Field notes were taken during and immediately following the interviews. Interviews were transcribed and interpretative phenomenological analysis used to analyse the resultant data. Findings: Seven individuals participated in this study. Findings indicated a number of contextual factors that affected the experience of bereaved grandparents, including intergenerational bonds, identity and perceived changes in role following the death of their grandchild. Bearing witness to the suffering of their child and an inability to 'make things better' were recurrent themes. The essence of grandparents' experiences was interpreted as focusing on fulfilling a parenting role to their child. Conclusions and implications: The research identified that the primary motivation of grandparental support stems from their role as a parent, and not as a grandparent. The breadth of pain experienced by grandparents is complicated by the multigenerational positions they occupy within the family. The transition from before to after death exacerbated the experience of pain. The findings from this study suggest the development of practice to better understand and support grandparents of children with a life limiting condition during life, in addition to bereavement support.

Place attachment is an important research area in environmental psychology. Paradoxically, comparing study findings has been made complicated by the numerous definitions, conceptualisations and methodologies which have been employed to study the area. As a result there have been few theoretical advances in recent years. This thesis, drawing on a review of the majority of studies which have been done to date, uses this analysis to undertake comprehensive qualitative and quantitative studies to clarify our understanding of residential place attachment and its importance for people’s behaviour in their communities. The thesis then addresses how residential place attachment contributes to community and personal environmental actions. Current quantitative and qualitative residential place attachment literature is explored through a systematic review (39 studies). Following this, the variables argued to be salient for the development of residential place attachment are incorporated into a questionnaire (N=499). Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses a comprehensive neighbourhood attachment model is constructed made up of the most important variables when measured together for the development of residential place attachment. In a second questionnaire (N=294) the model is then applied to explore whether there are differences in residential place attachment in different types of residential environments; urban, semi-rural and rural, as well as measure whether residential place attachment is related to community and personal environmental actions. Semi-structured interviews (N=18) were then carried out to explore the findings in more depth and address why there are differences in the results. The study found that place attachment is specific to type and scale of place and that different variables are salient for its occurrence and development in different places. Residential place attachment was found to be significantly higher among rural residents than urban and semi-rural residents. In more urban areas, attachment develops over time more as a result of social ties being formed. Place attachment in rural areas is strongly moderated by social ties; immediate attachment to the qualities of the physical environment assumes more significance than length of residence. The findings demonstrate that villagers living in a close-knit, rural community with a sense of responsibility for the village explain why social cohesion facilitates the relationship between residential place attachment and community environmental actions.

This is a qualitative study exploring the experience of the loss of an identical co-twin in older adulthood. Ten participants were recruited for the study through the biggest twin registry in the United Kingdom (UK): TwinsUK. All ten were interviewed, and transcripts of the interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Five key themes, referred to in this study as ‘master themes’, emerged from the analysis: The Twin Relationship, Embodiment, Separation, Preservation of a Connection, and Grief Comparisons. The analysis highlighted two central ideas: embodiment and identity. The study aligns with several existing frameworks for understanding twins and bereavement, including a unit identity and feelings of a loss of part of the self with the bereavement. The study also supports ideas about embodied grief, continuing bonds with the deceased, and co-twin loss being worse than other kinds of losses. Some distinctive contributions to Counselling Psychology and the understanding of bereavement are seen, for example a violent dimension within embodied grief is highlighted. In addition there are aspects of continuing bonds with the deceased in cotwin relationships that differ from continuing bonds in other relationships. Furthermore, co-twin loss was felt by some participants to be worse than other types of losses. This last finding has also arisen in previous research, and this study sheds some light on why research participants have felt this way.

According to the Childhood Bereavement network, a parent dies every 22 minutes in the U.K. Despite this, there is little research into the impact of parental death on children and young people. This psychosocial study explores the experiences of children and young people who have been bereaved of a parent and who are subsequently excluded from school. Three participants of school age were interviewed about their experiences of these two events and the data obtained from the interviews was analysed using an individual, psychoanalytically informed case study approach, allowing for an in-depth exploration of the affect generated by the existence of dynamic, intersubjective, unconscious processes during the interviews. The data emerging from the transference and counter transference was explored and it was found that the ongoing presence of an attachment figure might mitigate some of the risk factors associated with the experience of parental death. It also seems possible that this population of children and young people are likely to be under identified in schools and when they are known to have experienced parental bereavement, school professionals struggle to understand and respond to their emotional needs. Consideration is given to the implications for the role of the Educational Psychologist in working with this vulnerable population of children and young people. The wider potential of psychoanalytically informed approaches to working with pupils and staff in schools is also considered.