The Science Of Grief: What Helps, What Doesn't, And Why We Don't Talk About It Enough | Cody Delistraty
Journalist Cody Delistraty, author of "The Grief Cure," explores coping with his mother's death. He discusses cultural grief repression and experiments with laughter therapy, psilocybin, and AI, emphasizing rituals and community for living alongside loss.
Deep Dive Analysis
16 Topic Outline
Introduction to Grief and Personal Loss
Cody's Personal Experience with His Mother's Death
Societal Expectations of Grieving and 'Moving On'
The DSM and Prolonged Grief Disorder Controversy
Why Grief is Poorly Understood in Modern Culture
Historical Repression of Death and Grief
Laughter Therapy as a Physical Catharsis for Grief
Recreating Deceased Loved Ones Using AI Chatbots
The Concept of Grief as a Neurological Addiction
Finding Balance in Holding Grief and Continuing Life
Psilocybin's Role in Reframing Grief
The Importance of Empathetic Witnessing and Community
Do's and Don'ts for Supporting Grieving Individuals
The Power of Rituals in Processing Loss
The Possibility of Deleting Memories to Avoid Pain
Expanding the Definition of Legitimate Grief
6 Key Concepts
Prolonged Grief Disorder
A mental disorder added to the DSM-5TR in 2022, diagnosed if someone grieves for more than 12 months with specific symptoms like meaninglessness or identity disruption, within a cultural context that doesn't view such long-term grief as normal. It's controversial, with proponents seeing it as legitimizing severe grief and opponents viewing it as stigmatizing a natural part of life.
Tamed Death
A historical concept from prior to the 18th century where death was a visible, inevitable, and integrated part of life. People pre-grieved, died at home surrounded by family, and openly displayed mourning through customs like black-bordered stationery or death portraits, reflecting high mortality rates and a collective acceptance of death.
Happiness Culture
A societal trend, identified as early as the mid-1960s, where there's a strong emphasis on positive emotions and self-care, often leading to the repression and quietening of grief and death. This culture contributes to people not wanting to discuss loss, viewing it as burdensome, and expecting others to 'get over it' quickly.
Non-Duchenne Laughter
Voluntary, intentional laughter, often used in laughter therapy, which can still provide physiological catharsis despite not being spontaneous or involuntary. While there's debate on its legitimacy compared to natural Duchenne laughter, it can help release trapped physical tension associated with grief.
Grief as Addiction
A controversial school of thought suggesting that for some, grief can become neurologically rewarding. Studies using fMRIs showed that the brains of individuals with complicated grief lit up in the nucleus accumbens (reward region) when viewing reminders of their loss, implying a potential neurological reward for grieving.
Ambiguous Loss
A concept describing loss where not all facts are known or there is a lack of certainty, making it difficult to find closure. Examples include a soldier presumed dead but whose body is never returned, a psychologically absent parent who is physically present, or broader societal losses like climate change grief.
8 Questions Answered
The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is a diagnostic 'Bible' in the US, influencing what insurers cover. Adding Prolonged Grief Disorder in 2022 was controversial because while it legitimizes severe, long-term grief for some, others argue it pathologizes a normal human experience and sets arbitrary time limits on mourning.
We know little about grief because our culture tends to repress discussions of death and loss, viewing them as burdensome or something to be quickly 'overcome.' This societal discomfort leads to a lack of open conversation and research compared to its commonality.
Historically, death was 'tamed' and visible, with open mourning rituals. Significant shifts occurred with WWI, converting grief into patriotism, and later with Freud's individualistic view of grief and death moving to hospitals, leading to a modern 'happiness culture' that largely represses and privatizes grief.
AI chatbots can be trained to mimic deceased loved ones, allowing grievers to 'message' them. While it may not deeply convince users, it can provide a space to process unspoken questions, reassess relationships, and confront the reality of loss, sometimes by prompting engagement with actual recordings or memories of the deceased.
Balance involves neither viewing oneself as a 'forever griever' nor completely discounting or repressing grief. It means allowing grief to exist in one's life without letting it take over, acknowledging its presence while continuing to live and engage with other aspects of existence.
Effective support involves making it clear you are empathetic, compassionate, and willing to be present without minimizing their loss or projecting your own insecurities. Simply being there, giving permission to discuss their grief, and breaking the cycle of avoidance can be profoundly helpful.
Yes, various approaches can help, including laughter therapy for physical catharsis, bibliotherapy (reading books about grief to normalize the experience), psilocybin to reframe perceptions of pain, and participation in rituals and community groups like 'The Dinner Party' where shared experiences are openly discussed.
Research in optogenetics has shown the ability to delete fear memories in mice, and some neuroethicists speculate selective memory deletion in humans could be possible in 10-15 years. However, this raises significant ethical questions about whether it's a legitimate or 'fast food' solution to dealing with loss, and if losing such memories is truly desirable.
13 Actionable Insights
1. Embrace Impermanence to Reduce Suffering
Recognize that everything changes and ends, as ignoring this reality sets you up for suffering. Leaning into this truth requires less energy than living in denial.
2. Hold Grief While Continuing Life
Instead of trying to ‘move on’ or repress grief, learn to hold it in one hand while continuing with your life in the other. This approach prevents grief from taking over your existence.
3. Openly Discuss Grief and Loss
Break the cultural repression around grief by talking about it with others, as many people are waiting for the license to share their own experiences. This helps normalize the universal experience of loss.
4. Offer Compassionate Presence to Grievers
When someone is grieving, offer your physical presence, compassion, and understanding, giving them license to feel their emotions without minimizing their pain. Often, simply being there is the most meaningful help.
5. Witness Your Own Grief Internally
Be an empathetic witness to your own internal grief, neither feeding nor fighting it, which allows you to notice other coexisting mental states and function without denial.
6. Create Personalized Grief Rituals
Develop cheap, specific, and repeatable rituals (e.g., listening to a favorite song, visiting a meaningful place) to honor the deceased, as these can be more valuable than a single funeral.
7. Engage in Bibliotherapy for Grief
Read books and memoirs about grief to realize your story is not exceptional, normalizing your experience and understanding its ubiquity across history and cultures.
8. Practice Daily Laughter Therapy
Engage in daily laughter (even fake laughter) for a few minutes to experience physical catharsis and release trapped physiological tension associated with grief.
9. Reflect with Recordings of Deceased
Listen to recordings of the deceased to honestly face your grief, reassess your relationship, and consider what questions you would ask them.
10. Legitimize All Forms of Loss
Broaden your understanding of grief to include all forms of loss, such as divorce, financial ruin, or ambiguous losses like climate change, recognizing that all are legitimate.
11. Consider Psilocybin for Reframing Grief
Research suggests psilocybin can help reframe grief, allowing individuals to view it as something that doesn’t have to take over their life.
12. Join Grief Support Communities
Seek out ‘second spaces’ or communities, like The Dinner Party, where people with similar losses can gather, talk openly, and support each other.
13. Observe Death in Everyday Life
Consciously observe instances of death in everyday life, such as roadkill, to lean into the truth of impermanence and prepare for personal loss.
5 Key Quotes
If you love anyone or anything, the price you will ultimately pay is grief because eventually everything changes.
Dan Harris
My own grief isn't exceptional in a world like ours. The story of a young guy struggling with his mom's death might not exactly move the needle. What is exceptional, however, is how standard my story is, how grief comes for everyone and how little we know about how to grieve no matter the loss.
Cody Delistraty
I myself prefer to laugh because there's less cleaning up to do afterward.
Kurt Vonnegut (quoted by Cody Delistraty)
Grief exists on the same continuum as love and that your life eventually builds around it.
Cody Delistraty
I love this glass, it's beautiful, but to me it's already broken.
Ajahn Chah (quoted by Dan Harris)