Exploration or analysis of death and the process of bereavement was not morbid but was the very essence of life, Dr Anthony Clare, consultant psychiatrist, told a conference of widows and widowers in Dublin yesterday.
Dr Clare, medical director of St Patrick's Hospital, was addressing more than 200 delegates from around the world on the second day of a three-day conference of the International Federation of Widows' and Widowers' Associations in Dublin Castle.
Speaking on "Bereavement and Loss in Modern Ireland", Dr Clare said that in Ireland death was accepted and acknowledged. When he returned to Dublin after living in London he saw a funeral at the rush hour on a Friday evening. Traffic came to a halt as the cortege crossed the street. He was struck by the importance the public granted to grieving in the midst of a day's work.
"This may change with the new Celtic Tiger, where, perhaps, such sensitivity may get lost," he commented.
Irish culture had resisted trends where death was banished to hospitals and institutions and where funerals were bland, hygienic and speedy affairs. Death ignored may be death deprived, he said.
There were three stages of normal grieving. First, there was lack of reaction, a numbness, a feeling of unreality.
"What helps the process of grieving to be a healing one is the wake, the public funeral. Funeral services enable relations and friends not to mark a death but to celebrate a life," Dr Clare said.
However, very often a typical Irish funeral could anaesthetise the bereaved; when it was over was when it hit them. People drifted back to their own lives and the gap was felt, and the bereaved felt completely alone.
The second stage was of sleeping badly, weeping often, no zest, intense restlessness, with difficulty concentrating and remembering. There might be feelings of guilt or anger. Some said the physical pain was unbearable, and not for nothing did they speak of heartbreak, Dr Clare said. "Bereaved people feel embarrassed at losing control and feel social pressure to pull themselves together," he remarked.
He said this was never more so than at the time of the death of Princess Diana. The British people were accused of hysteria when in fact they wanted to grieve.
There was evidence that a full ventilation of grief was good for a person, and often people had to be encouraged to let go.
The third stage of grieving was that symptoms slowly abated and the bereaved came to terms with what had happened.
"No one who has lost someone close and dear is ever the same again. We should resist telling them that he or she will get over it and time is a great healer. We never get over death," Dr Clare said. Death was unfair. Some people were given a warning and could say all they wanted to say before a loved one died. Others, however, died suddenly after a car accident, heart attack, or stroke.
"One of the messages is that you should tell the living what they mean to you or you may not get the chance. So many people grieve so much because they wished to have said what they didn't," Dr Clare said.
Some regarded talking about death as morbid, but to see and face death and go on living was to live enriched. "To pretend it isn't there is a form of pathology." The conference, hosted by the National Association of Widows in Ireland, continued with workshops on themes including working with the young widow, with people bereaved following traffic accidents, supporting bereaved children, and the mourning process.