At the annual ADEC (Association of Death Education and Counseling), I spoke with Brittany Trauthwein about continuing bonds after loss.

Brittany is a doctorate student at the Chicago Professional School of Psychology who is writing a dissertation about continuing bonds after the death of a parent.

In the video below, Brittany discusses how she got into this topic and why it was so important for her to write about it as her dissertation.

Here are some key takeaways from the video:

• During the first year of her schooling, Brittany lost her father. That was when people started telling her stories about continuing bonds and how the theory worked.
• She immediately loved it and knew that it was the way she was going to go through her grief journey.
• Brittany then became interested in how other people were going through grief by continuing bonds. When she started doing the research on it, she couldn’t find any information about anyone between the ages of 18 and 30 years old. As a result, Brittany chose to focus her study specifically on that age group.
• Continuing bonds is the idea that you want to find a way to keep the parent in your life, in a meaningful relationship, while still being able to move ahead with your life. You’re just finding a new place for that parent in your life.
• Brittany keeps her dad in her life in many ways. For example, on her dad’s birthday she will eat her dad’s favorite foods and celebrate his life. She will also talk to him on a daily basis and tell him what’s going on in her life because she feels like her dad can still hear her.
• Brittany feels that it’s reciprocal, because she has dreams about her father which she feels is her father visiting her.

For more video interviews, please see the Open To Hope YouTube channel.

We also spoke with Jane Greer about continuing bonds with deceased loved ones.