How do our brains handle grief? | Mary-Frances O'Connor | TEDxUArizona
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Published 2023-05-28
Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, and author of The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss. She directs the Grief, Loss and Social Stress (GLASS) Lab, which investigates the effects of grief on the brain and the body. O’Connor earned a doctorate from the University of Arizona in 2004 and completed a fellowship at UCLA. Following a faculty appointment at UCLA Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, she returned to the University of Arizona in 2012. Her work has been published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, and Psychological Science, and featured in Newsweek, the New York Times, and The Washington Post. Having grown up in Montana, she now lives in Tucson, Arizona. For more information go to www.maryfrancesoconnor.com/
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx
All Comments (21)
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Grief is love with nowhere to go...
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Grief isnt only the physical loss of a loved one. It is loss of anything that was meaningful.
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Mary-Frances O’Conner- your theory on grief and loss has brought me so much peace and understanding as to what I’ve been going through. Thank you so much for all your hard work and sharing this information. You are such a gift.
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I love how she described the paradox of walking in both the world of expectation and the world of sensory experience at once. It makes sense to connect that to grief.
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I'm losing my closest friend to cancer, I'm lost I ache. It's hard yet I know I'll find peace in keeping her proud of me.
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You have helped me immensely with my grieving. I lost my husband on 9/1/23 after he had heart surgery and never recovered and he died two weeks after the surgery, still in the hospital. This video was so helpful that I will come back and refer to it often. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. 🙏
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The stolen dining room table analogy is absolutely genius. The phantom pain of missing what once was.
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Ive never understood why i have been prescribed antidepressants because i am grieving. I feel loss of loved ones deeply. Even losing my pets . To me, its a natural process and one needs to go through the stages. The latest loss is my son's fiancee. She died of covid at 27yrs old and it was senseless and shocking. My grief extends to my sons loss of the love of his life.
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Theme of the conversation. Attachment is the root of all types of grief.
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Different when it's your child. You can't find that same kind of bond with another child you meet like a partner or spouse.
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I’ve lost a long time partner of 20 years (2020) & my precious two Shihtzu 2020&2022 heartbreaking 💔 grief is hard particularly during COVID isolation. Good talk to help understand our brains 🧠
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Watched my dad die, during April 2013. A major first for me. My brother died on Sept 2 2021. Saw my mom, at hospice, the day before she died on 7/2/2022. Has given me more firsts than anytime before. Nothing can really prepare you for this. Have also lost 4 local friends. Does get a little easier over time. But the pain never totally leaves. I had wished a million times that I could wake up and all this would not be for real. It is. I picture it as an emotionally roller coaster. I have had a dream that I was calling my mom. Then I shook myself and realized i can't😣
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I have lost my spouse and a child. I facilitate bereavement support groups for close to two decades. Widowednotalone ( no profit) I read your book and it gives much needed answers for what’s happening in the brain. Which helps us to understand why emotionally it never completely leaves us. We move forward but we always feel attached. It also is spiritually that two become one. Ty for all your studies to help try to understand.
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My future husband has been killed by Russian troops 12 days ago. I can't come to terms with losing him, especially the way he went. Being shot dead. 3 days after i said to him "See you soon. Im afraid to be without you". Every day is a fight to stay alive. I'm still searching for him, looking for him, wherever I go
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Grief is hard. I lost my partner June 2. Grief is love. 😢
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The whole thing of that space where someone should be, I grieve others that way, some for 25 years, but I also keep on grieving myself, who I was before chronic illness, when I had energy and was able to work and have friends, family, future, hope. Having to match my present reality with the reality I knew before, to know how old I am and that I don’t remember anything since my 20s and I’m 42. I won’t remember writing this. I miss me. Yes, I miss my fiance who had cancer, my last serious boyfriend who killed himself, so many old friends, so many family members. But every day when I wake up, I have to remember that I’m not her anymore. I’m this.
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Her book, The Grieving Brain, is well worth reading.
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Grief is something that we all have to go through at some point in our lives. However, you must seek for help if you think it's getting out of your hands. You're not alone.
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You deserve to be with someone that would do everything it takes to keep you. Period.
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Grief is so worrying