Working Through Grief Running Head: WORKING THROUGH GRIEF Working through Grief: Tensions, Tales, and Taboos in How Working People Experience Personal Loss by Janell C. Bauer B.A., University of the Pacific, 1997 M.A., University of the Pacific, 2001 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Communication 2011 1 Working Through Grief This dissertation entitled: Working through Grief: Tensions, Tales, and Taboos in How Working People Experience Personal Loss written by Janell C. Bauer has been approved for the Department of Communication, University of Colorado at Boulder _____________________ Stanley Deetz _____________________ Timothy Kuhn _____________________ Bryan Taylor _____________________ Karen Ashcraft _____________________ Brenda J. Allen Date: _________ This final copy of this dissertation has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. IRB protocol # 0709.46 2 Working Through Grief Bauer, Janell Christine (Ph.D., Communication) Working through Grief: Tensions, Tales, and Taboos in How Working People Experience Personal Loss Dissertation directed by Professor Stanley Deetz Work has become an increasingly important element in our modern lives. Scholars have argued that, in many ways, work is intertwined with nearly every aspect of our lives shaping how we see ourselves, and the world (Ciulla, 2000; Deetz, 1992; Giddens, 1991). Though often overlooked, work has become relevant not only to how we live but to how we make sense of death and experience loss. Grief is a fundamentally social experience produced through interactions with our social world and the discourses that shape our reality. This research explored the role of work in bereaved individuals’ experiences with grief. Four questions were the focus of my analysis: 1. How do workers describe their experience with bereavement in relation to their work? 2. How do people describe workplace interactions after the death of their loved one? 3. How do bereaved workers talk about the relationships between professional identity and their emotional experience? 4. How do workers talk about their experience with bereavement leave policy? To investigate these questions and learn more about the phenomenon in general, I conducted qualitative interviews with individuals who had taken bereavement leave following the death of a loved one. Participants represented a range of organizations and industries and had diverse conditions around the loss of their loved one. What emerged was a picture of grief shaped by practical, relational, occupational, and affective concerns. The narratives in this study revealed insights about the experiences of bereaved workers. First, practicality and coping with the logistics of loss emerged as central to experiences of iii 3 Working Through Grief bereavement. In addition, it appeared that work may play an important role in coping, and that support from the organization and co-workers can be meaningful. Finally, complexities in participants’ descriptions of their reactions to formal bereavement policy suggested possibilities for improving organizational support for bereaved workers. iv 4 Working Through Grief Dedication This project is dedicated to my parents, Georgia and Gary Bauer, and the many people who have supported me in their absence. This study was written for those who have lost someone dear to them and have developed their own methods for coping with grief. I offer my deepest gratitude to all the individuals who bravely and unselfishly support others through the death of a loved one. v 5 Working Through Grief Acknowledgements I would first like to thank the individuals who shared their stories with me and became an essential part of this project, and with my own journey in making sense of loss. I am deeply grateful for your willingness to talk with me and to reflect upon the circumstances surrounding your bereavement. I endeavored to approach the reading and retelling of your experiences with care and respect. At the same time, I hoped to provide critical reflection on how our talk about grief both reflects and shapes the social systems we are a part of. I would like to thank Stanley Deetz for his direction and continued encouragement on this project. It has been an important intellectual and emotional endeavor and I value your guidance in the process. I appreciate the way you offered advice but also pushed me to find my own way through the challenges of qualitative study. In addition, committee members Brenda J. Allen, Karen Ashcraft, Tim Kuhn, and Bryan Taylor contributed direction and guidance. I am especially thankful for their conversation and commitment to respectful challenge, which helped me to grow and improve through the development of this project. I would like to offer a special note of gratitude to all my family, friends, and colleagues who provided tremendous support through a steady stream of pep talks, coffee breaks, empathetic listening, motivation, and so much more. I would like to acknowledge Margaret Durfy who has played a valued role in my working through this research process and Heath Dewey who, in addition to proofreading, shared this adventure with me and generously offered all forms of encouragement. My dear friend Jennifer Park has been my unyielding champion on this journey. Finally, my sister Kelsey Bauer helped ease my tension through laughter and massage; she continuously inspires me to pursue endeavors that would make our parents proud. vi 6 Working Through Grief Contents Chapter 1: The Business of Bereavement 1 A Social Constructionist View of Grief 2 Grief as a Social Phenomenon 4 At the Intersection of Work and Life: Defining Ourselves through Work 9 A Look at Grief in Relation to Work 14 Managing Grief 17 (Un)Intended Consequences of Bereavement Leave Policy 20 Overview of the Study 26 Chapter 2: Grief at Work and the Political Production of Emotion 29 Theorizing Emotion 29 The Organismic Model: Emotion as a Biological Response 30 Cognitive Appraisal of Emotion: “I Think I Feel…” 32 The Social Construction of Emotion: Social Rules for Feeling 33 The Poststructuralist Perspective: Power and the Production of Emotion 35 Power and emotions 36 The production of subjectivity and experience 38 Emotion at Work 40 Evolving Views on the Role of Emotion in Organizations 41 Approaches to Investigating Emotion at Work 44 Emotional labor 44 Emotional intelligence 47 Extending studies of emotion management 48 vii 7 Working Through Grief Cultural and professional emotion norms 49 The production of emotion 51 Grief at Work 53 Refining and Reconceptualizing the Scope of Emotion Labor 54 Grief and Communication Needs and Practices 56 Studies of Grief at Work 58 Chapter 3: Methodological Practices in the Study of Grief at Work 61 Qualitative Interviews: Recruitment and Interviewing 62 Recruiting Participants 63 Planning the Interview: Feminist Considerations 67 Constructing an Interview Guide 69 Conducting Interviews 72 Description of Participants 74 Qualitative Methods of Inquiry 75 Interviews as Narrative Accounts 78 Analyzing and Interpreting Interviews 80 Analytical Process 81 Coding: Exploring the Interviews and Looking for Themes 82 Thematic Interpretation 84 Feminist Readings of Interview Text 87 Chapter 4 Analysis: Responding to the Death and Making Sense of Grief 91 The Logistics of Loss 93 The Benefit of Being Busy 98 viii8 Working Through Grief Time for Grief: Expressions of Strain under the Pressure of Momentum 105 “I need help” versus “I can handle it”: Tensions in Requesting and 108 Accepting Help Uncertainty, Ambivalence, and Understanding in Bereavement 114 Uncertainty 114 Identifying and Processing Grief-related Emotions 117 Exploring solitary processes to enact grief work 120 Emotional Vulnerability and Managing Face 122 Reflection or Evaluation: Turning the Gaze Inward 126 Conclusion 128 Chapter 5: Exploring the Intersection of Work and Grief 131 Managing Emotion at Work 132 Professional, Hard-working, Me: Participants Talk about their Worker Identity 133 “To infinity and beyond!”: Worker as hero in descriptions of 134 professional identity Meeting Professional Expectations 136 Articulating Emotion Norms and Rules for Professional Behavior 137 Understandings of the professional/emotional divide: The rule is, leave 138 your feelings at home Professional norms for emotion management 140 Managing Emotion and Containing Affective Displays 144 Avoiding emotional experiences at work 145 Hiding emotion in the office 148 i9x Working Through Grief Emotion Rules for Grief Support: Revealing Interaction Expectations 150 Confronting a Lack of Support 151 Offending comments 152 Feeling the absence of emotional openings 153 Emotional closure at work contribute to changing attitudes 156 Appreciating Relational Connection at Work during Bereavement 158 Enhancing work relationships through bereavement support 159 Getting comfortable with the value of emotional support in 161 work relationships Reflections on the Themes 164 Chapter 6: A Feminist Reading of the Meanings of Grief at Work 167 Constructing Work/Life Boundaries through Talk about Grief 172 A Strategic Separation between Home (Grief) and Work 172 Complicating the Reading of Boundary Work 174 Gender, Emotion Work, and the Grieving Worker 182 Articulating Gender through Emotion Management