title: A loss in the family: silence, memory, and narrative identity after bereavement.
abstract: Grief theories have converged on the idea that the sharing of autobiographical memory narratives of loss and of the deceased person, especially within the family, is a major way to maintain and/or reconfigure a healthy sense of identity after a loss. In contrast, we examine unspoken memory-the withholding of socially sharing autobiographical memories about the loss and the departed family member-as a way to either conserve an existing narrative identity or assert a new narrative identity. Depending on its context and function, silence about memory can play either a positive or negative role in an individual griever's ongoing narrative identity, as well as in the larger family narrative in which the griever's identity is embedded.
authors.affiliation: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. jenna@mail.utexas.edu
authors.forename: Jenna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Baddeley
authors.forename: Jefferson A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Singer
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001601:Bereavement; D030881:Disclosure; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D011939:Mental Recall; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D014705:Verbal Behavior