The Public and Private Management of Grief, 1st ed. 2019 Recovering Normal

Through a critical analysis of theory, policy and practice, The Public and Private Management of Grief looks at how 'recovery' is the prevailing discourse that measures and frames how people grieve, and considers what happens when people 'fail' to recover. 

Pearce draws on in-depth interviews with bereaved people and a range of bereavement professionals, to contemplate how ?failures? to recover are socially perceived and acted upon. Grounded in Foucauldian theory, this book problematises the notion of recovery, and instead argues for the acknowledgment of the experience of ?non-recovery,? highlighting how recovery is a socially and historically constructed notion linked to the individualised vision of health and happiness promoted by neo-liberal governmentality. 

Caroline Pearce is a research associate within the School of Population Health and Environmental Sciences at King’s College London, UK

Illuminates the social construction of grief in contemporary UK using empirical study and a Foucauldian approach

Analyses how grief is managed, through the example of bereavement counselling

Problematises the notion of recovery and related discourses in terms of the norms and values promoted by neo-liberalism