Disenfranchised Grief

Disenfranchised grief is defined as that emotion which people experience when they incur a personal loss that is not openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned, or publicly mourned. The term has been thoroughly explored in two books by that same title and is a generally accepted concept within the literature on grief.

The concept of disenfranchised grief integrated a sociological perspective into the study of grief and loss. Previous theory emphasized grief as an intrapsychic process. Kenneth Doka's work emphasized that this process is heavily influenced by the degree to which the other individuals and society at large acknowledge and validate that loss. Grief is complicated when others do not acknowledge that the individual has a right to grieve. In such situations, 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 diminishment of social responsibilities.

To understand the social aspect of grief, it is important to remember that every society has norms that not only govern behavior but also affect cognition as well. Every society has norms that frame grieving. Thus, when a loss occurs, these grieving rules include not only how one is to behave but also how one is to feel and think. They govern what losses one grieves, how one grieves them, who legitimately can grieve the loss, and how and to whom others respond with sympathy and support. These norms exist not only as folkways, or informally expected behaviors, but also in formal statements such as company policies that extend bereavement leave to certain individuals or regulations and laws that define who has control of the deceased's 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 kin and nonkin. They harbor attachment to fellow humans, animals, and even places and things. Persons experience a wide range of losses—deaths, separations, divorces, and other [Page 379]changes or transitions. When these attachments are severed, be it by death or any other separation, the individual grieves such loss in characteristic ways. Individuals may experience, express, and adapt to loss in many ways, some outside of the grieving rules. In such situations, the personal experience of grief is discordant with the society's grieving rules. The person experiences a loss, but others do not recognize that grief. That person has no socially accorded right to grieve that loss or to mourn it in that particular way. Some analysts suggest that individuals internalize these grieving rules. Thus, there can be an intrapsychic or selfdisenfranchisement of grief where individuals believe that the grief they are experience is inappropriate, repressing the grief or converting it to feelings of guilt or shame.

The Disenfranchisement of Grief

There are a number of reasons that grief can be disenfranchised. First and foremost, in most Western societies, the family is the primary unit of social organization. Hence kin ties have clear acknowledgment in norms and laws. Although most individuals live their lives in “intimate networks,” or associations that include both kin and nonkin, only kin have legal standing.

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