“We Hardly Ever Talk about It”: Emotional Responsive Attunement in Couples after a Child's Death

• Date: 01 March 2018
• Author: Peter Rober,An Hooghe,Paul C. Rosenblatt
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12274
• Published date: 01 March 2018

“We Hardly Ever Talk about It”: Emotional

Responsive Attunement in Couples after a Child’s

Death

AN HOOGHE*

,†

PAUL C. ROSENBLATT

‡

PETER ROBER

§

Within Western cultural traditions, the idea that parents should talk about the death

of their child with each other is deeply rooted. However, across bereaved parent couples

there are wide variations in communication about their grief with each other. In this

study, we explored the experiences of bereaved couples related to the process of talking

and not talking. We used a thematic coding approach to analyze 20 interviews with 26

bereaved parents (11 interviewed as couples, four as individuals). Four main meanings

emerged out of our analysis: not talking because of the inadequacy and pointlessness of

words in grief, not talking as a way to regulate emotions in daily life, not talking as an

expression of a personal, intimate process, and not talking because the partner has the

same loss but a different grief process. In addition, we found that the process of talking

and not talking can partly be understood as an emotional responsive process on an

intrapersonal and interpersonal level. In this process partners search for a bearable dis-

tance from their own grief and their partner’s, and attune with their relational context.

A better understanding of this process is sought in a dialectical approach, emphasizing

the value of both talking and not talking in a tense relationship with each other. Impli-

cations for clinical work are described.

Keywords: Qualitative Research; Grief; Loss of a Child; Dialect ical Approach;

Communication; Couple Relationship

Fam Proc 57:226–240, 2018

INTRODUCTION

We tried hard to spare each other. Mainly, we remained silent about the unspeakable. It is

one of the most persistent paradoxes that I keep struggling with during all my reflections:

the stereotype that “words fail” is completely right in my opinion, but on the other hand exactly

those same words are the only way not to disconnect from everyone (Hooghe, Neimeyer, & Rober,

2011, pp. 910–911).

*University of Leuven, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

†

Context, UPC KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

‡

Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN.

§

Department of Neurosciences,Institute for Family and Sexuality Studies, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to An Hooghe, Context, UPC KU Leuven,

Leuvensesteenweg 517, 3070 Kortenberg, Belgium. E-mail: an.hooghe@upckuleuven.be.

We thank the psychologists and head of the department of child oncology, University Hospital Leuven,

for inviting parents for this research.

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Family Process, Vol. 57, No. 1, 2018 ©2017 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12274