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opportunity to gradually devise strategies for dealing with these additional losses, and lets others know how and when they can help.

Chapter 7
    Positive emotions
    BOOKS AND WEBSITES ABOUT grief and mourning feature plenty of information about negative emotions—how important it is to feel them, not repress them, and how fundamental they are to grief. You cannot love and not experience some degree of negative emotions when that loved one dies.
    What the traditional bereavement research fails to explain, however, is the transformational power of positive emotions in all stages and aspects of our life, and especially while we are grieving. The grief literature might be adept at telling us to accept that experiencing and sharing our negative emotions is key to successful grieving, but it is largely silent on the critical importance of experiencing and sharing positive emotions at this time. This is largely based on ignorance, owing to the fact that academics don’t commonly like to consider research findingsfrom beyond their field. So, while plenty of evidence has accrued in psychology over the last three decades detailing the vital importance of positive emotions for our psychological health, 1 most of the researchers publishing in Death International (yup, that’s the snappy name of the leading bereavement journal) have yet to stumble upon this important and relevant research.
    DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE CRITICAL IMPORTANCE OF EXPERIENCING AND SHARING POSITIVE EMOTIONS AT THIS TIME.
    What we do know is that all emotions have been crucial for human survival over the millennia. They are what psychologists call ‘adaptive’. That is, emotions have evolved because they help humans respond and adapt in specific ways. For instance, most people are familiar with the fight or flight response which, when invoked by danger or anger, mobilises all our psychological and physiological resources to focus narrowly on the threat, thereby increasing our chances of survival. As this reaction to our emotions increased our chances of survival, so this mechanism has stayed with us through thousands of years of evolution.
    While the fight or flight instinct is well known, the adaptive function of positive emotions has until recently been less understood. In 1980, American psychologists Lazarus, Kanner and Folkman suggested that, in the face of adversity, positive emotions may provide psychological time out, as well as sustaining coping efforts and restoring key resources diminished by stress. 2
    Barb Fredrickson, Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina, a key researcher in the field of positive emotions, has made it her lifelong academic endeavour toestablish the evolutionary purpose of positive emotions. That is, why do we have them; how have they helped humans to adapt and survive through time? She has become well known in psychology for the formulation of her ‘Broaden and Build’ theory, which posits that positive emotions perform a key adaptive purpose by enabling us to broaden our perspective and discover a greater range of solutions and creativity, and, over time, build our social, intellectual, psychological and even physical resources. In essence, positive emotions do more than just feel good; they actually do good.
    Fredrickson’s research has produced some important findings about positive emotions that are relevant to grieving. For instance, they are fleeting (like any emotional state, feelings of joy, gratitude, interest, awe and contentment typically last only a matter of minutes); they are less intense and less attention-grabbing than negative emotions (which we easily notice); but they also have vitally important downstream outcomes, critical to life and death. These include friendship development, marital satisfaction, higher incomes, better physical health and longevity. 3 A recent review of almost 300 studies concluded that positive emotions are as instrumental in creating success and health as they are