Capstone title and abstract
Co-destiny: A conceptual goal for parental bereavement and the call for a “positive turn” in the scientific study of the parental bereavement process.
Parental bereavement is a unique form of bereavement and is widely considered the most intense and severe of all bereavement processes. The systematic study of bereavement initially was based on the psychoanalytic approach and concentrated on the alleviation of the negative affective symptoms associated with grief in the bereaved. The current literature in this field has identified meaning and its different construals to be important aspects in the positive adaptive processes in bereaved parents and found that meaning reconstruction in this population can promote growth and increased well-being. I believe this represents the beginning of a positive turn in the field of bereavement research. Through my own experience as a bereaved father and my formal education in positive psychology, I have devised the theoretical construct of “co-destiny.” This paper presents the theoretical and empirical evidence that represents the foundation of the concept of co-destiny. It calls for researchers and therapists within the field of parental bereavement to embrace positive psychology and to change the goal of therapy to growth and increased well-being.
