Parents’ Grief: Thoughts on the Loss of a Child

Abstract

The sudden death; the interruption of future projects, of the idealizations set upon a child; and its irreplaceable role within parents’ imagination hamper the grief resolution process due to the loss of a child. Thus, this study aimed to understand how parents experience the loss of a child, discussing particular aspects related to this situation. Through a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews guided by thematic axes were conducted with 11 parents who had lost their children between four months and one year and four months before the interview. Collected data underwent thematic analysis, revealing the communication cores. Incomparable pain, guilt, different experiences between fathers and mothers, other children, the feeling of losing a part of themselves, the loss of a narcissistic object, and the experience of grief towards the contemporary social functioning were the main elements present in parents’ narratives. This study demonstrates the importance of considering the singularity of the parental grief without misinterpreting it as melancholy. To help developing appropriate interventions aimed at these cases, one must recognize the aforementioned aspects, as well as the differences marking paternal and maternal experiences, parents’ narcissism, and the contemporary context. The findings also point to the relevance of speech in organizing a narrative that enables the construction of a meaning for the loss and grief resolution.

Keywords: Death and Dying; Grief; Parent-Child Relations; Narcissism; Contemporaneity