The Inner Representation of the Dead Child and the World Views of Bereaved Parents

The trauma of a child's death challenges the parents' worldview, that is, their basic assumptions about how the universe functions and the place or power they have in the universe. The experience of the death is either assimilated into the worldview, or the worldview must accommodate it. This article demonstrates how the task of affirming or remolding the worldview is consistently intertwined with the parents' continued interaction with the inner representation of their dead child. Phenomena which indicate interaction with the inner representation of the deceased are a sense of presence, hallucinations in any of the senses, memory, use of linking objects, or a conscious incorporation of the characteristics or virtues of the dead into the self. Data is from a ten-year ethnographic study of a self-help group of bereaved parents.