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Document Details : Title: Death, Spirituality, and a New Contextualised Model of Consolation Author(s): JEDAN, Christoph Journal: Studies in Spirituality Volume: 32 Date: 2022-2023 Pages: 61-86 DOI: 10.2143/SIS.32.0.3292453 Abstract : This article argues that in the academic study of spirituality, more attention is needed for consolation, understood as a human practice. It uses Seneca’s Consolation to Marcia, the earliest surviving sustained Latin consolation, as an example to ground and illustrate the development and refinement of a convincing account of consolation. The article presents and defends a new comprehensive model of consolation (‘Contextualised Model of Consolation’) that differentiates clearly between the context of consolation (ideally, a comforting encounter in which grief can be expressed, recognised and accepted) and consolation in the narrower sense: a highly cognitive practice that proceeds along five thematic axes (underscoring the consoland’s resilience; regulating the consoland’s emotion through an ideal of ‘acceptable’ grief; establishing and celebrating the continued legacy of the deceased’s biography; formulating a therapeutic larger-scale worldview in which death has a legitimate place; and reconnecting the consoland to relevant communities, ranging from the family system to culture, nation and even humanity). |
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