Week 11: The gravity of an absence

Why grief resists the neat-stages model, and why this course studies its shape rather than asking anyone to manufacture it

3 May 2027

Grief research has largely moved away from the popular five-stages model towards accounts that emphasise an ongoing, non-linear relationship with an absence — “continuing bonds” theory, for instance, describes grief not as a process with an endpoint but as a lasting, shifting relationship with what’s gone. This lecture stays theoretical for a reason: this is the one experience in the course this week’s practicum does not ask you to induce.

Outline#

• why the stage model of grief is now considered too tidy by most researchers who study it, and what continuing-bonds theory proposes instead
• absence as a felt presence: why the shape of what’s missing so often feels more specific than “sad,” and what that specificity might be telling us
• a direct pointer to the policies page for this week’s opt-out and support options, restated here because this is where it matters most