My father died of cancer when I was a teenager. He was 52. I didn’t realize how young he was until I surpassed his age. My father died in middle age. It wasn’t his middle age.
I’ve never liked covering death and dying at the end of the Intro Psych lifespan chapter. By putting death after discussion of being an older adult, the implication is that that is the right time to die. Everyone who dies before their 80s or 90s has evidently done life wrong. That doesn’t sit well with me.
In my Intro Psych textbook, the previous author had placed death and dying at the end of lifespan. When I revised the book, I deleted that section of the chapter. That didn’t feel right, either. It’s an important topic that we need to be talking about.
I visited the booths at the 2024 American Psychological Association convention. I could claim that I enjoy seeing what’s new in the land of vendors, but really, I just like seeing what’s new in promo items. My favorites these days are branded Tide pens and neck gaiters. I also like lip balm, but I may have a lifetime supply now. Even if my lifetime extends deep into my 90s.
On this particular visit to the vendor booths, I met Jen Reising and Heather Taylor of The Mourning Movement who offer “professional grief resources to build community and change the narrative around grief.”
In my conversation with Jen and Heather, the death and dying coverage solution came to me. Our Intro Psych coverage should not be about death and dying but about grief. Yes, we experience grief from the death of someone we love—including a pet—or our own impending death, but we also experience grief that results from other losses such as a job, a friendship or other relationship. A presidential election. Each requires coping with the loss of a previously imagined future.
Jen and Heather write:
Grief is not just about sadness; it encompasses a myriad of feelings that can surprise us in their intensity and variety. You might find yourself oscillating between anger and relief, guilt and nostalgia, or despair and love—all within a short span of time. This is perfectly normal. Emotions in grief are like colors in a palette, each adding depth and nuance to our experience of loss (Reising & Taylor, 2024).
Rather than cover death and dying in the lifespan chapter, I’m going to cover the more global feeling of grief in the emotions chapter.
In a survey of 800 Intro Psych instructors, one-third reported that they don’t cover emotion (Richmond et al., 2021). Some instructors who exclude emotion have told me that discussion of the theories of emotion bores them. What if we changed the focus of the emotions chapter from theories that explain where emotions come from to focus on some of our more powerful emotions? Let’s talk about happiness and anger. And, yes, let’s also talk about the complex emotions that come with grief.
References
Reising, J., & Taylor, H. (2024, September 11). The many faces of grief—Embracing emotional diversity. The Mourning Movement. https://themourningmovement.com/f/the-many-faces-of-grief—embracing-emotional-diversity
Richmond, A. S., Boysen, G. A., Hudson, D. L., Gurung, R. A. R., Naufel, K. Z., Neufeld, G., Landrum, R. E., Dunn, D. S., & Beers, M. (2021). The Introductory Psychology census: A national study. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 7(3), 163–180. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000277
