Abstract
This chapter deals with an experience of bereavement during the lockdown. A first person stream-of-consciousness narrative provides the starting point for the exploration of mourning in lockdown, the effects of not attending a funeral and the negotiation of loss through commemorative and healing rituals. A Freudian perspective is adopted. Grief in different cultures, process of reconciliation loss and the importance of time are also considered in this chapter.
Elizabeth McMullan lost a close family member at the beginning of the first lockdown and Rebecca Reynolds wrote her Ph.D. on Psychoanalysis and Death. Both authors are postdoctoral researchers in psychoanalysis and psychosocial studies.
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This is dedicated to K, who died during the first COVID-19 lockdown
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McMullan, E., Reynolds, R. (2021). Death, Loss and Limbo in Times of Pandemic. In: Ellis, D., Voela, A. (eds) After Lockdown, Opening Up. Studies in the Psychosocial. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80278-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80278-3_3
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