GESTATIONAL LOSS: EMOTIONAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS

This study attempts to verify the conditions of mothers who have gone through gestational loss. It is designed according to semi-structured interviews of affected mothers. Through semi-structured recorded interviews, directed questions were asked to ascertain perceptions that they were living through at that moment, about their adaptation to daily life, and about their mourning process and the quality of their professional activities. From the interviews, eight categorizations were created: symptoms of mourning; the time to return to work and daily routines; lack of societal recognition of mourning; mourning and spirituality; seeking of healthcare support; the fathers’ pain; the need of someone; who is this baby? And the following feelings were documented from the interviews: feelings of losing control of one’s life; broken dreams; feelings of incompleteness, guilt, and personal defeat; feelings of inferiority as a woman; subjective losses; losses in identity and eroticism; a woman’s role in society. Lastly, the study examines how gestational loss is unrecognized and unsupported by legislation, exposing a weakness in workers’ rights and unequal treatment regarding gender.

Mourning the Bards: Interrogating the Contemporaneity of John Milton’s Lycidas and Pius Adebola Adesanmi.

This paper examines John Milton’s ‘Lycidas’ in line with the traditional conventions for analyzing pastoral elegies which include the invocation of the muses, the presence of nature in the mourning process, the charging of the guardian spirits by the mourners of negligence, the mourning procession, the questions of justice, elaborate passage and the final consolation. The paper further interrogates the African concept of death and the mourning of the dead. It further discusses the semiotic codes of death and mourning in Africa. It also critically examines the contemporaneity ‘Lycidas’ and its place in the contemporary society by juxtaposing the mourning of the death of King Edward and Prof. Pius Adebola Adesanmi. The paper, which is dedicated to the sad memory of late Prof. Pius Adesanmi, quarries the similarities and the coincidences between the death and the mourning of King Edward and Prof. Pius Adesanmi who were both young and dynamic poets and scholars but who died prematurely while travelling. The paper shows that their death symbolizes the universality and the inevitability of death.

How Interactive Art Installations Can Be Utilized For Practices Of Mourning

This research examines how interactive art installations can facilitate practices of mourning. The paper considers the following questions; 1) How does our relationship with space, time, and art affect how we mourn a deceased loved one? 2) How does space affect the living body when grieving? 3) How does time affect the memory of a departed loved one? 4) How does art therapy as meaning-making benefit the mourning process? The research engages with questions of perception, memory, inner and external space, and the embodied experiences of art. It offers an analysis through a phenomenological and socio-psychological lens of how art can be used to benefit the mourning process. The paper contains case studies examining current art installations and interactive art installations depicting mourning and grief. The paper explores how art and perception create meaning within our sense of self, and how this can benefit the grieving process.

How Interactive Art Installations Can Be Utilized For Practices Of Mourning

This research examines how interactive art installations can facilitate practices of mourning. The paper considers the following questions; 1) How does our relationship with space, time, and art affect how we mourn a deceased loved one? 2) How does space affect the living body when grieving? 3) How does time affect the memory of a departed loved one? 4) How does art therapy as meaning-making benefit the mourning process? The research engages with questions of perception, memory, inner and external space, and the embodied experiences of art. It offers an analysis through a phenomenological and socio-psychological lens of how art can be used to benefit the mourning process. The paper contains case studies examining current art installations and interactive art installations depicting mourning and grief. The paper explores how art and perception create meaning within our sense of self, and how this can benefit the grieving process.

The Silent Witness Project as Rhetorical Hybrid: Toward a Theory of Collective Mourning

Public, visual displays, that aid in the mourning process and summon viewers into action, constitute a rhetorical hybrid that combines epideictic and deliberative rhetoric. This essay suggests a theory of collective mourning that seeks to explain the rhetorical import and function of these multimedia, public displays. The combination of form and content allows the critic to understand how the epideictic and deliberative function in this genre of discourse. After explaining the theory, a case study of the Silent Witness Project follows.

Death and Mourning Process in Frontline Health Care Professionals and Their Families During COVID-19

The COVID-19 epidemic has mushroomed globally, disrupting the existence of millions. Under this current pandemic situation, the frontline health care professionals are looped in the clutch of the virus and are relatively more exposed to the patients infected with the disease. In this precarious situation, the frontline health care professionals have contributed their best to provide utmost care to the patients infected with the ailment. The direct involvement of these professionals, however, has taken a toll on their physical health as well as on their mental well-being. Several studies conducted recently have reported that frontline health care workers engaged in direct diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients with COVID-19 are associated with a higher risk of symptoms of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues. Lack of personal protection equipment, unreasonable amounts of work, improper medicines, fear of contracting the disease, and lack of skilled training have interposed the frontline health care workers with unimaginable stress. Due to the widespread outbreak, the death count of the frontline health care professionals has also surged. However, studies exploring the physical and mental welfare of the frontline health care professionals and their families are very few and far behind. To address this aperture, the present paper attempts to highlight the psychological and physical impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the frontline health care professions and to understand the impact of the death of these frontline health care professionals on the psychological well-being, mourning process, and complicated grief among the family members of healthcare professionals. The paper also presents some recommendations for providing psychological support to healthcare professionals and their bereaved families.

Strategies to Cope With the COVID-Related Deaths Among Family Members

The extraordinary circumstances of deaths during COVID-19 pandemic have been challenging for the deceased's families. This contribution aims to describe some spontaneous strategies that family members may adopt to cope with the loss of a relative for COVID-19. The present reflection derives from the experience of a clinical psychology unit of one of the biggest public hospital in Milan, Italy, which supported 246 families of COVID-19 victims in the 1st days after the loss. Spontaneous strategies used by family members to deal with such a unique mourning process involved: creating alternative good-bye rituals, normalizing the loss, addressing faith and hope, highlighting the perks of isolation, supporting others in need, and delivering the bad news to others. These observed strategies may suggest how to assess and support a “normal” bereavement process during the extraordinary COVID-19 circumstances, in order to prevent further psychological distress.

Is PTSD the New Normal? Survival Tips for Professional and the Value of Mindfulness

At the time of this publication the Corona Virus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine reports 4.8 million COVID-19 related fatalities. Every life lost leaves behind multiple lives mourning. Considering parents, spouses, partners, children, close relatives, and friends of those who succumbed to the pandemic, it is reasonable to extrapolate 4.8 million fatalities to 15-48 million people experiencing trauma, grief, and the mourning process related to the death of a loved one.

The Blackstar: Persona, Narrative, and Late Style in the Mourning of David Bowie on Reddit

This article considers how David Bowie’s last persona, The Blackstar, framed his death through the narratives of mourning it provoked on the social media site Reddit. The official narrative of death, through the media, and the unofficial narrative of death, through the fan, can contradict each other, with fans usually bringing their own lived experiences to the mourning process. David Bowie is a performer of personas. While Bowie died in 2016, his personas have continued to live on, informing his legacy, his work, and his death reception. Through the concepts of persona, narrative, authenticity, late style, and mourning, this article finds that Bowie’s Blackstar persona actively constructs fan’s interaction with Bowie’s death. Instead of separate and contradicting narratives, this article finds that users on Reddit underpin and extend the official narrative of his death, using Bowie’s persona as a way to construct and establish their own mourning. As such, Bowie’s last persona is further entrenched as one of authentic mourning, of a genius constructing his own passing. With these narratives, fans construct their own personas, informing how they too would like to die: artistically and with grace.