Cultural mediation of grief: the role of aesthetic experience

Abstract

In Global North’s psychology, some existential experiences such as the loss of beloved persons are understood as purely individual problems. In a society of functioning individuals, the person is responsible for her own condition and for consuming the healthcare services provided to overcome the “problem” as soon as possible to go back to the fully functional role in the society. This vision raises several questions about turning “experiences” into “pathologies.” Historically, mankind made sense of death, loss, and grief as both a personal and collective experiences, mediated by heterogeneous cultural forms. I elaborate theoretically the concept of cultural mediation of grief, focusing on the esthetic and temporal dimensions of such mediation, as it is visible in art, rituals and everyday discourses. The idea is that such mediation is always present, and that psychology must be able to recognize it also in apparently secularized societies.