The Social Deconstruction of Grieving and the Horizon of Continuities.

Abstract

In this abstract, I discuss a psychoanalytic framework for understanding loss and grieving in Salvadoran patients. The framework is inductively derived through years of practice with patients. I begin with a presentation of case types and then describe concepts of “biosimilar”, the horizon of continuities, and the assemblage as they relate to the case types. These concepts provide a theoretical reference point upon which I have inductively come to understand and structure treatment for grieving patients. In this paper, I am developing the notion of a “biosimilar approach to grieving” which employs assemblage theory to understand psychological cases of grieving and loss. When I refer to a “biosimilar”, I am referring to a biological entity, organism, or behavior that, in response to a “loss-activator” and a “duel-active principal,” searches to be equivalent to its reference. This search is presented in its repetition and concentration of efforts to become the original biological entity, which I refer to from now on as a reference biological entity, which may be human or non-human.