Grief, Continuing Bonds, and Unreciprocated Love

Abstract

The widely accepted "continuing bonds" model of grief tells us that rather than bereavement necessitating the cessation of one's relationship with the deceased, very often the relationship continues instead in an adapted form. However, this framework appears to conflict with philosophical approaches that treat reciprocity or mutuality of some form as central to loving relationships. Seemingly the dead cannot be active participants, rendering it puzzling how we should understand claims about continued relationships with them. In this article, we resolve this tension by highlighting two fundamental aspects of paradigmatic loving relationships that can, and often do, continue in an adapted form following bereavement: love and mutual shaping of interests, choices, and self-concepts. Attention to these continuing features of relationships helps to capture and clarify the phenomenological and behavioral features of continuing bonds. However, love and mutual shaping must also change in important ways following bereavement. Love becomes unreciprocated, and although the dead continue to shape our interests, choices, and self-concepts, we predominantly shape their legacies

Communing with the Dead Online: Chatbots, Grief, and Continuing Bonds

“…For our purposes, they encompass: (1) conversational practices, (2) emotion regulation, and (3) shared time. We argue that these habits of intimacy allow us to construct continuing bonds not only with the living but 8 For a fantastic exploration of the potential tensions between continuing bonds, loving relationships, and (lack of) reciprocity, see Millar and Lopez-Cantero (2022).…”

“…For personal use only --not for reproduction the to continue to relate to the deceased individual, to allow the dead to continue to 'shape our interests, choices, and selfconcepts' (Millar and Lopez-Cantero 2022), and thus sustain our continued (albeit altered) relationship with the person lost.…”

“…The need for mutual and reciprocal engagement is also emphasized in literature on loving relationships (e.g. Anderson, 2019;Candiotto and De Jaegher, 2021;Millar and Lopez-Cantero, 2022). Continuing bonds with someone after they have died, then, necessitates a change in our relationship with a loved one, as this can no longer be a relationship founded on reciprocity.…”

Epistemología del duelo: reflexiones sobre la continuidad de vínculos

“…El papel de las relaciones con las personas difuntas para la identidad de las personas dolientes ha sido abordado en la ética (Cholbi, 2017;Millar & Lopez-Cantero, 2022):…”

Grief and the Inconsolation of Philosophy

“… Millar and Lopez-Cantero have argued recently that relationships can continue following bereavement(Millar et al, 2022) -though they must take a different form. Love shifts to being unreciprocated, and relationships change to being one-sided.…”