Re-storying pregnancy loss: Threading narrative, artmaking and textile-weaving into an embodied grief work ritual
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Abstract
In Western societies, certain traumatic losses are met with a lack of grieving rituals or grief work templates to acknowledge, process, or integrate these losses. This can lead to disenfranchised grief. This article is based on a visual auto-ethnographic study of pregnancy loss in South Africa. It explores the creation of a secular, ritualised form of grief work in line with non-linear models of grief that emphasise connecting bonds. In this article, I explore how a combination of narrative, artmaking and textile-weaving can be employed in traumatic loss and disenfranchised grief as a form of ritualised embodied grief work. I show how creating a personalised, secular ritual can help restore bonds of connectivity according to Dennis Klass’s oscillation model of grief. This form of narrative weaving is posited as an alternative way of giving voice to that which is unbearably hard to voice and ‘re-storying’ the narrative for meaning-making. This article proposes, therefore, that the threading through of these complementary techniques is an effective model of embodied grief work to acknowledge trauma and loss and combat disenfranchised grief.
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References
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Denshire, S. (2014). On auto-ethnography. Current Sociology Review 62(6), 831 –850. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392114533339
de Witte M., Orkibi H., Zarate R., Karkou, V., Sajnani, N., Malhotra, B., Ho, R.T.H., Kaimal, G., Baker, F.A. & Koch, S.C. (2021). From therapeutic factors to mechanisms of change in the creative arts therapies: A scoping review. Frontiers in Psychology, 12(7), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.678397
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Nielsen, H. (2004). The impersonal voice in first-person narrative fiction. Narrative, 12 (2), 133-150. https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2004.0002
Odabasi, S. (2022). The hidden potential of textiles: How do they heal and reveal traumas., Textile: Journal of Cloth and Culture, 2, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2021.2020410
Reiheld, A. (2015). “The event that was nothing”: Miscarriage as a liminal event. Journal of Social Philosophy, 46(1), 9-26. https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12084
Reissman, C.K. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences. Sage Publications.
Reynolds, F. (1999). Cognitive behavioral counselling of unresolved grief through the therapeutic adjunct of tapestry-making, Arts in Psychotherapy, 26(3), 165-171. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0197-4556(98)00062-8
Scuro, J. (2017). The pregnancy {does not equal} childbearing project - a phenomenology of miscarriage. Rowman & Littlefield International. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520913226
Seftel, L. (2006). Grief unseen: Healing pregnancy loss through the arts. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Seftel, L. (2001). The secret club project: Exploring miscarriage through the visual arts, Art Therapy, 18(2), 96-99. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2001.10129753
Siegel, D. J. (2017). Mind: A journey to the heart of being human. W.W. Norton & Company.
South, H. (2019). What Is a triptych in the art world? The how’s and why’s of designing an effective triptych. Retrieved 7 May 2022 from https://www.liveabout.com/triptych-drawing-definition-1123079.
Van Zyl, J. Holding pregnancy loss: Re-storying a feminine self through artmaking. MA thesis. University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg.
Villiers (de), W. (2016). An observer on the fringe. Retrieved 16 September 2022 from https://www.textileartist.org/willemien-de-villiers-observer-fringe/.
White, M. & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Winnicott, D.W. (1988). Human nature. New York: Routledge.
Wojnar, D.M., Swanson, K.M. & Adolfsson, A. (2011). Confronting the inevitable: a conceptual model of miscarriage for use in clinical practice and research, Death Studies, 35(6), 536-558. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2010.536886
Young, L.J. (2018). The seamstress and the secrets of the argonaut shell. Retrieved 30 June 2022 from https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-seamstress-and-the-secrets-of- the-argonaut-shell/.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Association. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596
Binder, M. & Kotsopoulos, S. (2011). Multimodal literacy narratives: Weaving the threads of young children’s identity through the arts. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 25(4), 339-363. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2011.606762
Brin, D. (2008). The use of rituals in grieving for a miscarriage or stillbirth. Women & Therapy, 27(3-4), 123-132. https://doi.org/10.1300/J015v27n03_09
Cartwright, D. (2010). Containing states of mind: Exploring Bion’s “container model” in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Routledge.
Dalley, T. (2000). Back to the future: Thinking about theoretical developments in art therapy. In A. Gilroy & G. MacNeilly (Eds.), The changing shape of art therapy: New developments in theory and practice. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Denshire, S. (2014). On auto-ethnography. Current Sociology Review 62(6), 831 –850. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392114533339
de Witte M., Orkibi H., Zarate R., Karkou, V., Sajnani, N., Malhotra, B., Ho, R.T.H., Kaimal, G., Baker, F.A. & Koch, S.C. (2021). From therapeutic factors to mechanisms of change in the creative arts therapies: A scoping review. Frontiers in Psychology, 12(7), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.678397
Eldridge, L. (2012). A collaged reflection on my art teaching: A visual autoethnography. Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, (32), 70-79.
Ellis, C. & Bochner, A.P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (Ed.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed) (pp. 733-761). Sage Publishers.
Frost, J., Bradley, H., Levitas, R., Smith, L. & Garcia, J. (2007). The loss of possibility: Scientisation of death and the special case of early miscarriage. Sociology of Health & Illness, 29(7), p. 1003–1022. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2007.01019.x
Frost, M. & Condon, J. (1996). The psychological sequelae of miscarriage: A critical review of the literature. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 30, 54-62. https://doi.org/10.3109/00048679609076072
Ganz, M. (2008). What is public narrative?. Bodhi, an Interdisciplinary Journal, 2(1), 1-19.
Garlock, L. (2016). Stories in the cloth: Art therapy and narrative textiles. Art Therapy, 33(2), 58-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2016.1164004
Garrod, T. & Pascal, J. (2019). Women’s lived experience of embodied disenfranchised grief: Loss, betrayal, and the double jeopardy. Illness Crisis and Loss, 27(1), 6-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1054137318780582
Gibbs, R.W. (1994). The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language and understanding. Cambridge University Press.
Herrera, H. (1991). Frida Kahlo the paintings. Harper Collins Publishers.
Kurz, M. (2020). When death precedes birth: The embodied experiences of women with a history of miscarriage or stillbirth—a phenomenological study using artistic inquiry. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 42(3), 194-222. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10465-020-09340-9
Lang, A., Fleiszer, A., Duhamel, F., Sword, W., Gilbert, K. & Corsini-Munt, S. (2011). Perinatal loss and parental grief: The challenge of ambiguity and disenfranchised grief. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 63(2), 183-196. https://doi.org/10.2190/OM.63.2.e
Layne, L. (2002). Motherhood Lost: A feminist account of pregnancy loss in America. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12087
Lindemann, H. (2015). Miscarriage and the stories we live by. Journal of Social Philosophy, 46(1), 80-90.
Mallon, B. (2008). Dying, death and grief. Sage Publishers.
Mannay, D. (2016). Visual, narrative and creative methods: Application, reflection and ethics. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315775760
McIntosh, P. (2010). The puzzle of metaphor and voice in arts-based social research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 13(2), 157-169. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645570902969357
Meyerowitz-Katz, J. (2003). Art materials and processes – a place of meeting art psychotherapy with a four-year-old boy. Inscape, 8(2), 60-69. https://doi.org/10.1080/17454830308414055
Modell, A.H. (1970). The transitional object and the creative act. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 39(2), 240-250. https://doi.org/10.1080/21674086.1970.11926527
Moon, C.H. (2008). Introduction. In Media and materials in art therapy: Critical understandings of diverse artistic vocabularies (pp. 1-11). Routledge.
Nielsen, H. (2004). The impersonal voice in first-person narrative fiction. Narrative, 12 (2), 133-150. https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2004.0002
Odabasi, S. (2022). The hidden potential of textiles: How do they heal and reveal traumas., Textile: Journal of Cloth and Culture, 2, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2021.2020410
Reiheld, A. (2015). “The event that was nothing”: Miscarriage as a liminal event. Journal of Social Philosophy, 46(1), 9-26. https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12084
Reissman, C.K. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences. Sage Publications.
Reynolds, F. (1999). Cognitive behavioral counselling of unresolved grief through the therapeutic adjunct of tapestry-making, Arts in Psychotherapy, 26(3), 165-171. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0197-4556(98)00062-8
Scuro, J. (2017). The pregnancy {does not equal} childbearing project - a phenomenology of miscarriage. Rowman & Littlefield International. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520913226
Seftel, L. (2006). Grief unseen: Healing pregnancy loss through the arts. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Seftel, L. (2001). The secret club project: Exploring miscarriage through the visual arts, Art Therapy, 18(2), 96-99. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2001.10129753
Siegel, D. J. (2017). Mind: A journey to the heart of being human. W.W. Norton & Company.
South, H. (2019). What Is a triptych in the art world? The how’s and why’s of designing an effective triptych. Retrieved 7 May 2022 from https://www.liveabout.com/triptych-drawing-definition-1123079.
Van Zyl, J. Holding pregnancy loss: Re-storying a feminine self through artmaking. MA thesis. University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg.
Villiers (de), W. (2016). An observer on the fringe. Retrieved 16 September 2022 from https://www.textileartist.org/willemien-de-villiers-observer-fringe/.
White, M. & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Winnicott, D.W. (1988). Human nature. New York: Routledge.
Wojnar, D.M., Swanson, K.M. & Adolfsson, A. (2011). Confronting the inevitable: a conceptual model of miscarriage for use in clinical practice and research, Death Studies, 35(6), 536-558. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2010.536886
Young, L.J. (2018). The seamstress and the secrets of the argonaut shell. Retrieved 30 June 2022 from https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-seamstress-and-the-secrets-of- the-argonaut-shell/.
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Jul 13, 2023
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Re-storying pregnancy loss: Threading narrative, artmaking and textile-weaving into an embodied grief work ritual. (2023). South African Journal of Arts Therapies, 1(1), 203-225. https://doi.org/10.36615/sajat.v1i1.2571
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How to Cite
Re-storying pregnancy loss: Threading narrative, artmaking and textile-weaving into an embodied grief work ritual. (2023). South African Journal of Arts Therapies, 1(1), 203-225. https://doi.org/10.36615/sajat.v1i1.2571