What does it mean to experience Socially Incongruent Grief?
This article was written for therapists, psychiatrists and mental health practitioners. Since other readers may also find it helpful it has been slightly modified.
Grief is like standing under “the open sky”. Everyone’s experience is different, and no one can feel exactly what you feel. But you know that your sadness is real and belongs only to you. No one can truly feel or view your full landscape from your position. Yet you know deep down that your feelings of grief and your mourning of losses, whether stemming from physical death or other losses, are authentic and genuine. The grief is real. It belongs solely to you and to nobody else. This article answers the following three questions: (1) What is “Socially Incongruent Grief”? (2) How did this term come about? And (3) Why is it important?
All mourners have valid experiences of grief. However, in my clinical practice, I encountered individuals who believed their mourning was considered “illegitimate.” They were unable to mourn their non-physical-death losses because external factors, conflicting with their genuine internal selves that needed to grieve, inhibited them. Within their social environment, their grief was deemed inappropriate. It did not align with the thoughts, experiences, or values of others, for spoken or unspoken reasons. As a result, the mourners experienced personal discord. But why should matters of the heart be dictated by those outside our own inner being? Why should others possess the authority to determine what is worthy of grieving for those who suffer?
While working with certain individuals, I observed a combination of initially perplexing signs and symptoms, some of which are outlined below. This prompted me to introduce the term “illegitimate grief” during my research on unacknowledged trauma and grief (Misrachi, 2012). I conducted this research while simultaneously maintaining a part-time clinical practice. As my understanding evolved, I refined this concept into a more practical term: Socially Incongruent Grief (SIG). There is currently limited discourse surrounding SIG, and it lacks recognition or comprehensive articulation in the existing grief literature. Therefore, its universal application to all individuals experiencing grief cannot be guaranteed. However, giving it a name has facilitated the development of a temporary language for clinical insights and the psycho-education of specific individuals. This applies to those who possess sufficient mental clarity and cognitive capacity to grasp such knowledge in the context of self-awareness.
Sadness serves a purpose, distinct from impostor syndrome, which refers to the tendency to doubt one’s abilities despite evidence suggesting otherwise (Kogan et al., 2020). In the case of SIG, those affected do not question their capacity to grieve; instead, society denies them the permission to openly express their grief. SIG, in direct contrast to impostor syndrome, pertains specifically to the experience of genuine grief, rather than a sense of being fraudulent or imaginary. This particular type of grief appears to follow a discernible pattern, wherein individuals’ thoughts, emotions, and behaviours develop within the context of and are influenced by their external psycho-social environment. In other words, SIG appears to be a phenomenon that is intertwined with the sociopolitical landscape in which the person is historically and culturally situated, as intimately as it is connected to the individual sufferer. The following case study exemplifies this point.
“Mavis” (not her real name), an elderly woman who spoke earlier of material, psychological and emotional deprivations as a child, walked into therapy after a long period of absence. This time, Mavis spoke of her earlier child sexual abuse by an older brother, a highly educated, much admired professional occupying an influential government position. Despite confronting him during adulthood about his sexual abuse of her during childhood, and despite him admitting to this abuse, he never apologised. In making an active choice regarding her emotional and psychological safety, Mavis decided to become estranged from him. The responsibility for sexual violation always remains with the perpetrator, no matter what age, and Mavis’s decision to become estranged from the perpetrator can be viewed as an ‘act of bravery’ as she resisted societal pressures. Doing so increased her dignity. Mavis’s silence and her period of absence from therapy was due to her fear of being disbelieved, as others have often behaved and reacted to her in the past, including family members. But over decades, as the silence grew, so did grief, and so did her physical ailments. For Mavis, this reached unbearable proportions. It was precisely that which propelled her back into a safe therapeutic space to tell her story. This time, giving it a go, she spoke without her usual inhibitions stating: I carried this… excruciatingly painful secret grief. It was so weird… I just felt I had no right to mourn, no right to feel sad, who’d believe me anyway? I hid it all… so well for decades! My family kept saying my older brother deeply loves me. It made no sense… I can’t do this anymore. No. No I just can’t [Mavis cries].
Mavis experienced profound trauma due to the sexual abuse inflicted upon her. However, her grief was further complicated by the cognitive dissonance associated with her experience. One notable disconnect was between the societal expectation of having a lifelong, normal sibling relationship and the reality of having a sibling who behaved abnormally. As a result, Mavis had to sever the relationship, but this came at the cost of enduring ongoing cognitive dissonance. Many individuals in similar situations may not even be aware of this disconnect due to various reasons. It is common for trauma survivors to recount fragmented or disjointed stories of their grief and loss experiences. As discussed by Herman (1992), these highly emotionally charged narratives undermine credibility and serve the dual purposes of truth-telling and secrecy.
Consequently, Mavis lived with numerous uncertainties, as reflected in her accounts and the complex emotions she expressed. Although some confusion arose due to the cognitive dissonance, which from my clinical observations may be linked to SIG, Mavis admirably recognised that shame rightfully belonged to the perpetrator.
Grief has long been acknowledged as a phenomenon influenced by social and political regulations (Fowlkes, 1990). Middleton and colleagues (2014) highlight the global issue of societal silence surrounding trauma, which logically extends to encompass grief following any form of trauma. According to social norms, individuals are expected to connect with and love their siblings throughout their lives. However, in cases of child sexual abuse perpetrated by an older sibling, like Mavis’s older brother, the perpetrator remains physically present and available but becomes psycho-emotionally absent from the survivor’s life, as Mavis described him as “dead.”
Unfortunately, survivors of abuse and neglect often find that the losses they experience are not recognised as valid causes for grief (Bloom, 2002, p.8), particularly when the perpetrator is socially acceptable. This poses a significant challenge for people like Mavis, who grieve the effects of child sexual abuse by a close family member, especially when that perpetrator is respected in society. This difficulty is further compounded by the fact that Mavis struggled to be believed by others, especially as family members consistently asserted that her brother “deeply loves” her. Meanwhile, her brother gained widespread professional and public acceptance. As we now understand, being believed is crucial for healing the wounds caused by incest or sexual abuse (Herman, 1992). However, without social permission to grieve, the ability to complete the mourning process may be compromised, contributing to a “Loss of the Ability to Complete Mourning” (Bloom, 2000b, p.2).
It became evident that Mavis’s self-isolation and self-silencing were not driven by guilt but rather by a need for safety. This served to intensify her grief, and she articulated a profound sense of lacking the right to mourn or feel sadness. In other words, her socially perceived illegitimate grief became, in her mind and heart, “incongruent.” This fed cognitive dissonance. It also triggered a chain reaction, setting off a vicious cycle that further entrenched her grief, digging deeper into her being.
Mavis suffered various physical symptoms, such as an elevated heart rate and muscle tension in her jaw and body. Whereas previously she took great pride in not needing medical attention, her emerging physical symptoms now elicited a need for medications. It is now well-established that untreated traumas have long-term impacts on physical health and well-being for at least two reasons: Firstly, grief, loss, and trauma are interconnected concepts (Brom & Kleber, 2000). Secondly, if trauma-induced grief persists into adulthood, as evidenced by the significant findings of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, it can have lasting effects on disease burden, leading to various avoidable individual and societal costs, including premature death among survivors (Felitti and Anda, 2010).
To promote healing, it is essential to expand the boundaries of grief literacy and knowledge. The act of naming Mavis’s collection of painful losses as SIG was a significant step towards this objective. By labelling her experience, her grief became a reliable guide, allowing us to comprehend the severity and depth of her losses. It marked the beginning of the therapeutic process. Like many people in similar situations, Mavis is unquestionably a legitimate mourner. Although this particular form of grief warrants attention and calls for further research, to prevent or address the emergence of SIG, it is imperative that we proactively strive to become grief-informed (not just trauma-informed).
This article was originally published in Mind Cafe, September, 2023, Issue 94. (Some modifications were made to the original article to suit a general readership).
References:
Bloom, S., L. (2002). Beyond the beveled mirror: Mourning and recovery from childhood maltreatment. In J. Kauffman (Ed.), Loss of the assumptive world. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Bloom, S., L. (2000). The grief that dare not speak its name. Part II: Dealing with the ravages of childhood abuse. Psychotherapy Review, 2(10), 469–472.
Brom, D., & Kleber, R. J. (2000). On coping with trauma and coping with grief: Similarities and differences. In R. Malkinson, S. S. Rubin & E. Witztum (Eds.), Traumatic and nontraumatic loss and bereavement: clinical theory and practice. Madison, CT: Psychosocial Press.
Felitti V.J., Anda, R.F; (2010). The relationship of adverse childhood experiences to adult medical disease, psychiatric disorders and sexual behavior: Implications for healthcare. In: Lanius R.A., Vermetten, E., Pain, C. (Eds). The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.77–87.
Fowlkes, M.R. (1990). The social regulation of grief. Sociological Forum, 5, 635–652.
Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence-from domestic to political terror (2nd ed.). New York: Basic Books.
Kogan, R, L., Regina Schoenfeld-Tacher, R., Hellyer, P., Grigg, E. K., Kramer E (2020). Veterinarians and impostor syndrome: an exploratory study. Publisher: VetRecord Volume187, Issue7 Pages 271–271.
Middleton, W., Stavropoulos, P., Dorahy, M. J. Christa Krüger, C., Lewis-Fernández, R., Martínez-Taboas, A., Sar, V., & Brand, B, (2014). Institutional abuse and societal silence: An emerging global problem, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 48(1) 22–25
Misrachi, S. (2012). Lives Unseen: Unacknowledged Trauma of Non-Disordered, Competent Adult Children of Parents with a Severe Mental Illness (ACOPSMI). Department of Social Work Melbourne School of Health Sciences Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, from http://hdl.handle.net/11343/37852
