Grief

DISENFRANCHISED

The professor and writer Kenneth J. Doka introduced the concept of disenfranchised grief in his 1989 book, Disenfranchised Grief: Recognizing Hidden Sorrow. Doka defined disenfranchised grief as "grief that persons experience when they incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned or publicly mourned" (p. 4).

The concept of disenfranchisement integrates psychological, biological, and sociological perspectives on grief and loss. Previous research has emphasized the variety of reactions in the grieving experience. While an individual may have an intense and multifaceted reaction to loss, that loss and the attendant responses may be unacknowledged by family, friends, or the surrounding society. Although the individual grieves, others might not acknowledge his or her right to do so. Such persons are not offered the "rights" or the "grieving role" such as a claim to social sympathy and support, or such compensations as time off from work or diminution of social responsibilities.

In order to understand the social aspect of grief, it is important to remember that every society has norms that govern not only behavior but also affect and cognition. Every society has norms that frame grieving. These norms include expected behavior, in addition to feeling, thinking, and spiritual rules. Thus, when a loss occurs, these grieving rules include how one is to behave and how one is to feel and think. They govern what losses one grieves for, how one grieves for them, who legitimately can grieve for the loss, and how and to whom others respond with sympathy and support. These norms exist not only as folkways, or informally expected behavior, but also as "laws." More formal statements of these grieving rules can be illustrated by company policies that extend bereavement leave to certain individuals, or regulations and laws that define who has control of the deceased body or funeral rituals.

In the United States and many other societies, these grieving rules limit grief to the deaths of family members. When a family member dies, one is allowed and expected to grieve, often in a specified way. Yet human beings exist in intimate networks that include both relatives and friends. They harbor attachment to fellow humans, animals, and even places and things. Persons experience a wide range of losses—deaths, separations, divorces, and other changes or transitions. When death or any other separation severs these attachments, the individual grieves for such loss in many ways, many of which might clash with the culture's norms for grief. The person then experiences a loss, but others do not recognize his or her grief. That person has no socially accorded right to grieve that loss or to mourn it in that particular way. The psychologist Jeffrey Kauffman suggests that individuals internalize these grieving rules. Thus there can be an intrapsychic or self-disenfranchisement of grief whereby individuals believe that their grief is inappropriate, leading to feelings of guilt or shame.