This thesis examines the narrative reconstructions taken from extended conversations with 25 bereaved individuals, who volunteered their experiences of losing a loved one. By considering the interaction between self and other to be the source of knowledge, these interview conversations provided a vehicle through which the human encounter with death and loss not only found expression but came into being. Bereavement is approached as a ‘cultural object’, so as to capture prevailing ideas, norms and beliefs about how this should be handled and provide further insight into the place of death in contemporary British Society. Such ‘norms’ are taken to be co-constructed through discursive practice, and continually evolving through negotiation between the individual and social processes. Attention is therefore drawn to the way people use available cultural forms to construct and express meanings that are particular and personal to them. This study demonstrates the value of an interactive approach for gaining a fuller understanding of the complexity of social life, thereby contributing to methodological and ethical debates on the implications of using qualitative, interactive methods, particularly with sensitive topics. It highlights the co-constructed nature of the data and the crucial role of self-reflexivity in managing the emotional impact of the research on the researcher as well as the participants. An analysis of interview narratives has revealed how deceased loved ones retained a significant social presence in the life of survivors regardless of other social factors. It has highlighted the diversity of meanings people gave to their experiences, which convey how bereavement interacted with other agendas and priorities to shape their day to day social life and sense of identity. Such findings revise and extend current understandings of the ‘continuing bonds’ people forge with their dead and the nature of ‘personhood’ in contemporary British society.

yes / Professionals working with patients at end of life need to feel comfortable and confident discussing death, dying and bereavement (DDB), however this is not always the case.1 2 The Continuing Bonds Project sought to explore the impact of archaeology on the confidence and comfort for health and social care professionals and students in talking about DDB.

Background: The death of a child can be a devastating experience for many parents; research suggests it results in an intense and enduring grief which can negatively impact on parents' psychological well-being. Parents with surviving children face the task of navigating their own grief and continuing to parent. Surviving children's responses to the loss of a sibling is complex and sometimes problematic; it is suggested that family functioning is a key aspect of the sibling's response. Psychological literature shows that sibling bereavement has been under-researched (Woodrow, 2007) with little attention given to the quality of the emotional relationship between parent and child, before and after sibling loss. Aims: Research to explore the stories of bereaved parents and how they experienced their emotional relationship with their surviving children after the death of another child can build on and expand existing literature; resulting in suggestions for clinical psychologist on how to better support surviving relationships at this difficult time. Methodology: Qualitative methods allow for richness, context and allow parents to tell stories of their emotional relationships with surviving children. Stories are the way in which we give order and meaning to the events in our lives (Gilbert, 2010). Consequently, a narrative analysis was viewed as the most epistemologically and ethically appropriate research method; and most appropriate to answer the research question. Analysis and Findings: Parents told stories of connection and disconnection in their emotional relationship with their surviving children after the death of another child in the family. Emotional connection and disconnection is influenced by the competing and potentially incompatible tasks of 'parenting' and 'grieving'. Stories of connection with surviving children were constructed as 'putting my living children first' and 'avoiding the fog' of grief; these stories illustrated less connection to the deceased child and parental grief. Conversely, stories of disconnection with surviving children were constructed as getting 'stuck in the fog' of grief and 'remembering'; these stories illustrated more connection to the deceased child and parental grief.

No / This study considered the nature of continuing bonds with deceased relatives in a sample of Pakistani Muslims living in the United Kingdom. Ten participants were interviewed following a cultural psychology approach and transcripts were analyzed using grounded theory methodology. Dreaming, talking with others about the deceased, following the deceased's example, keeping memories and mementos, and doing actions thought to help the deceased were forms of continued relationship found. These were intertwined with the process of grieving and were influenced by the family, culture, and religion. Religion was a strong influence on the prominence given by participants to finishing well and on the notion of doing actions thought to help the deceased. Cultural mores, such as the community, and collectivist ethos and the expectation that emotion would be expressed around the time of death, were found to be supportive for some but sources of tension for other participants. Expressing a continuing bond through following the deceased's example so as to make them proud or happy seemed to be reinforced by cultural roots in respect for elders. Participants gave instances of tensions in areas such as expression of emotion and communality versus individualism that arose as a result of their position between two cultural frameworks, some illustrating how assimilation into the host culture set up conflict with the expected norms of their family/ancestral culture. The study highlights how understanding different cultural and religious influences may enrich the concept of continuing bonds.

Yes / Modern, advanced healthcare detects and monitors long-term and life-limiting illness more comprehensively than ever before. However, death is now often considered medical failure, and is a virtually taboo topic of conversation in daily life. At a time when the societal relevance of archaeology is under scrutiny more than ever before, the AHRC-funded Continuing Bonds Project – a collaboration between archaeology and palliative care – explores the potential of the past to promote discussion. Not only does archaeology illuminate the diversity of practice surrounding death, the past provides a safe, distanced platform for considering death, dying and bereavement today. Through archaeological and ethnographic case studies, health and social care professionals and students consider topics such as place, choice and identity, in both personal and professional life. This article examines participant responses to a variety of archaeological material and presents post-workshop reflections which demonstrate the success of archaeology in opening up conversations and increasing confidence in discussing this most enduring and problematic of life events. / Arts and Humanities Research Council

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies / Soo-Hye Han / Advancements in technology, particularly the introduction of online social networking sites, have expanded the modes available when handling the death of a loved one. This study examines how individuals use the Facebook profile pages of deceased persons to cope with loss and maintain relationships with them. An extensive content analysis of Facebook profiles of ten deceased individuals was conducted to investigate what the living discuss in their messages to the deceased in the semi-public setting of a Facebook profile page and if this content changes over the course of time. This analysis revealed that messages to the deceased reflect three themes: 1) processing the death, 2) remembering the deceased, and 3) maintaining the relationship. In addition to these dominant themes, the data also indicated that the content of messages shifted over time. Messages that contained the processing of death remained consistent over time, while posts that reflected remembrance of the deceased decreased, and messages that demonstrated relationship maintenance increased with time. This study utilizes the theoretical frameworks of continuing bonds and social information processing to draw implications of these findings. By examining the content written and how messages change over time, this study provides insight into how people cope with loss and maintain relationships with their deceased loved ones in the digital age.

For most of the past century, the positive outcome of grief in the West was characterized as the relinquishment of the bond to the deceased. Phrases such as "let go", "move on", and "get over it" were, and continue to be, common to the language of this pursuit. This 'breaking bonds' perspective does not take into account other means of grief resolution, nor does it consider historical or cultural findings. Consequently, reports of bereaved parents who indicate resolution of grief yet maintain a continued relationship with their deceased child were not given much attention until the 1990s. This research employed a Durkheimian approach, taking the social bond as the starting point of inquiry and examined continuing bonds of parents to their murdered children. How these bonds were related to the parents' attitudes of re-investing in life and their level of grief was measured. The relationship between the parents' level of grief and their life attitudes was also assessed. The sample consisted of 46 parents living in North Texas whose child had been murdered three or more years ago. A triangulated methodology was utilized and the data were collected by means of participant observation, unstructured interviews, and a mailed questionnaire which obtained information on continuing bonds, level of grief, life attitudes and demographic variables. Multiple regression techniques were utilized to analyze the quantitative data. Parents on the Continuing Bonds Scale reported high levels of bonds with their deceased child. Contrary to expectation, the level of continuing bonds parents maintained with their children was found to be independent of other variables in the study. The relationship between parents' level of grief and their life attitudes was inverse in that higher levels of grief were associated with lower levels of re-investing in life. The finding of the independence of the Continuing Bonds Scale indicates the parent's level of grief and life attitudes are not related to continuing bonds; the bonds exist regardless. The relationship between level of grief and life attitudes points to a crisis of meaning.

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