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Document Details : Title: Ritual as Strategy for Coping with Separation and Divorce Author(s): GORDON-LENNOX, Jeltje Journal: Marriage, Families & Spirituality Volume: 31 Issue: 2 Date: 2025 Pages: 234-250 DOI: 10.2143/INT.31.2.3295219 Abstract : Navigating the end of being a couple is among the most emotionally challenging situations couples and families face. A high number of relationships today peak with separation or end in divorce. Ensuing feelings of distress, shame, and powerlessness can lead to serious illness and even death. Few religious and secular models for ritualizing separation seem adequate for facing present-day end-of-relationship distress. Transdisciplinary perspectives can shape our responses to loss and adversity positively by challenging the mind-body divide that pervades much of current thought and treatment. This article posits that the transformative experience of ritual is intrinsically tied to embodied intentionality. This claim is supported by the work of ritual theorist Catherine M. Bell which provides profound insight into the nature and function of ritualization. Stephen W. Porges’s research, in particular his polyvagal perspective on ritualizing in religious and secular contexts, exposes the neurophysiological effects of ritualizing on wellbeing. These three lenses, applied to five vignettes from the author’s experience, show how ritualizing separation and divorce can promote a sense of safety and connection that benefits the couple, their friends, and even society as a whole. |
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