RT Article
T1 Grief and loss: towards an existential phenomenology of child spirituality
JF International journal of children's spirituality
VO 13
IS 3
SP 277
OP 286
A1 Walters, David A.
LA English
PB Taylor & Francis
YR 2008
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1779671881
AB Western cultures have taken on a death‐denying and grief‐avoiding dimension, suggesting that children in particular are to be protected from the harshness of loss and death. As a result, many children grow up without having consciously experienced the pain of major loss and grief. It is argued that having been spared from suffering, from the pain of working through their grief, they are being subjected to a form of emotional and spiritual abandonment by those around them. As Søren Kierkegaard asserts, it is these very adults who come to play the role of ‘thieves’ or ‘bandits’ in their misguided attempts to protect children. As father of existentialism, Kierkegaard and his followers have suggested notions of self, being and spirit that assist in developing a phenomenology of child spirituality. The existential understanding of spiritedness or spiritual directedness appears particularly suitable to children, given their innate qualities of openness, the desire to understand, their qualities of innocence and purity. The case of Simon is discussed, not only his adjustment to major loss, but movement through various modes of being that require self‐assessment, dialectical relationship, and the active choice required of existential psychotherapy. As such, it is argued that when a child is assisted in making grief meaningful, he or she is also afforded an opportunity to enrich their spiritual resourcefulness and that this serves as both model and inspiration to adults around them.
K1 Søren Kierkegaard
K1 Grief
K1 Loss
K1 hermeneutic understanding
K1 Existential psychotherapy
K1 children’s spirituality
DO 10.1080/13644360802236599