Mary-Frances O’Connor discusses The Grieving Brain at Saddlebrooke

Presentation given by Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor on The Grieving Brain at Saddlebrooke on Nov. 17, 2022.
Dr. O’Connor conducts studies to better understand the grief process both psychologically and physiologically. She is a leader in the field of complicated grief, a clinical condition in which people do not adjust to the acute feelings of grief and show increases in yearning, avoidance, and rumination. Her work primarily focuses on trying to tease out the mechanisms that cause this ongoing and severe reaction to loss. In particular, she is curious about the neurobiological, immune, and cardiovascular factors that vary between individual responses to grief.

[@virginiamccruden6733]

This is wonderful

[@user-xs7hy7vs7d]

I found this talk to be quite helpful. I long for the loss of a bonded pet to be included in talks like this more than I've been able to find. It's a disenfranchised grief that's rarely addressed. I hope for this to change in future research and discussions.
Thank you for bringing information to us that explains the types of thing one goes through with a bonded loss relationship.

[@martinote510]

Perhaps it would help to put something topical in the title Since most people will see this out of context and have no idea what it is regarding

[@ecanet]

Question: I lost my wife to cancer. I just received a copy of her book ‘Grieving Brain’. In several places in the book around p104 and following she refers to her ‘wife’. I normally would not care, but I’m reading her book and I want confirmation that she is a lesbian before I continue reading. I feel no obligation to explain why. >> Listened to her UA-cam video on the book. She talked about going to England with her ‘partner’, not a husband, and she obviously didn’t want to say ‘wife’ like on page 104 of her book. I’m a man that lost his wife after 35 years. Nothing she said about mice in a cage in an hour talk was helpful to me so I’m returning her book. It’s interesting all one has to do to earn a Phd from the faculty that came before you - the academic buddy system at work.

[@ecanet]

She did mention that she lost her father around 26, but she didn’t elaborate much on her grief. I lost my father at 21, and I was devastated, but within 1-2 years I had worked through it and was excited to marry my future wife within those two years. Any man suffering from the loss of a wonderful marriage due to the death of his wife needs another man who has suffered and endured the same, either through counseling or by reading a book he authored about his loss and ongoing recovery. This woman seems very pleasant and grieving women would likely relate to her. I doubt she could even begin to comprehend the pain and anguish of losing his wife. Again, her book would likely be of little use to the widower. What I long for is my own death as the needed reprieve of this heavy inescapable sorrow I have failed to resolve after seven years.

[@mysterydiaz5302]

This only deals with “one and only”. What about loosing a child???

[@doe8151]

it’s all love I think. Also with loosing a pet 💔 they are all loved ones