When words fail

1
When words fail

• Chaos and Containment

2
Life stories creation of meaning

• Focus on the individual and biography/autobiograph
  y
• Continuing bonds in bereavement theory
• Examination of illness narratives
• (Kleinman, 1988 Frank, 1995 Seale, 1998 Bury
  2001)

3
Forms of stories

• The restitution narrative
• Belongs to a modernist paradigm
• The chaos narrative
• Unspeakable experiences
• The quest narrative
• Draws on post-modern ideals
• (Frank, 1995)

4
Chaos void, vortex and vertigo
5
Annihilation, Meaninglessness Nothingness

• Psychoanalysis - always tried to understand the
  core anxiety of the human condition
• Klein (1946) central to the earliest
  experiences is fear of personal annihilation
• How the death instinct is experienced as
  working within the personality

6
Meaninglessness Nothingness

• Grotstein (1990)
• Meaninglessness content without/deprived of
  meaning
• Nothingness the container of meaninglessness
• The death instinct as signifier of the
  disintegration of the self, dissolution

7
Containment or nameless dread
8
The moment of diagnosis
9
Ronnys painting as a container