Grief is a complex emotional response, deeply influenced by an individual’s attachment style, as outlined in Bowlby’s attachment theory. In this article, I discuss the character Lee Eun Jeong from the drama series Be Melodramatic, whose boyfriend, Hong Dae, leaves her because of a traumatic death. I describe her grieving process in showing how her attachment style allows her own grief to be expressed and how the psychological mechanisms in such a journey of healing manage to derive from it.
Attachment Theory and Its Influence on Mourning. Attachment theory by John Bowlby refers to the early attachment experience with caregivers as something that sets up the stages for in-life emotional ties formation and responding in grief. Attachments that manifest in reactions of emotional expressions or repression overwhelm an individual after losing a significant other when an attachment figure is dead. Researchers categorise attachment styles into secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganised. Individuals with avoidant attachment tend to struggle with grieving processes and appear emotionally unattached, while those with secure attachment tend to better adapt to this condition. Eun Jeong’s case below quite vividly depicts how these early attachment relationships can very profoundly influence mourning processes.
Read More: How Does Your Attachment Style Affect Your Relationship?
Case Study: Lee Eun Jeong’s Life and Loss
Eun Jeong is first introduced as a pragmatic, emotionally careful woman. Her life seems sound financially and shows very little emotional disturbance until the loss of her partner, Hong Dae. Her strength begins to break when she starts hallucinating Hong Dae. Even if her friends are frightened of her condition, they avoid commenting on it because she needs that support after something so devastating and also because they themselves are somehow incapable of handling such an intense reaction from her side.
From the background history about Eun Jeong, she is a documentary director and was great at her job. The workplace was highly stressful, yet she remained composed despite facing challenges, including sexual harassment. After losing her job, she decided to start afresh with a new project and fell deeply in love with Hong Dae, one of her interviewees. He was a tolerant and self-reliant man who assisted her with her documentary project. Their relationship, therefore, was meaningful to her emotionally, probably entrenching a profound need for him to feel acceptable.
When Eun Jeong’s partner, Hong Dae, dies of an incurable disease, she becomes emotionally paralysed as well. Though open-facedly stoic, the pain shows in her inability to fully open up in emotion, steering closer to an avoidant attachment profile.
The studies conducted by Raphael, Worden and Parkes have suggested predictors of at risk bereaved people and in the present case, perceived non supportiveness in bereaved social network and also the response of the non-supportiveness of social network to bereavement crisis occurring together particularly traumatic circumstances of death, young age of survivor, pinning is high which are some of the significant predictors of at risk bereaved individuals.
This further brings us to her attempts to commit suicide, which illustrates the principle of retroflected anger. If the anger isn’t directed towards the deceased or displaced onto someone else, it may be retroflected, turned inward and experienced as depression, guilt, or lowered self-esteem. In extreme cases, retroflected anger may result in suicidal behaviour either in thought or in action. Suicidal thoughts do not always represent retroflected anger. They also come from a desire to rejoin the deceased.
Read More: How To Overcome Low Self-Esteem?
Eun Jeong’s Process of Grieving Through Worden’s Tasks
Grief, as outlined by Worden’s Four Tasks of Mourning, is a helpful way to understand Eun Jeong’s process as follows:
Task 1: Acknowledge the reality of the loss
Eun Jeong intellectually is in touch with the reality of Hong Dae’s leaving, but feels herself unable to accept it, and hence, the emotional acceptance of the reality isn’t there. She also has fantasies about him that have an overwhelming component of denial – selective forgetting of his dying. In the internal “searching” described by Bowlby and Parkes, she creates an illusory presence of her partner.
Task 2: Processing the Pain of Grief
Eun Jeong could not get past the ache of losing Hong Dae because she avoided emotions; hence, her inability to discover ways to soothe and experience that ache. Eun Jeong is a practical and strong-headed person; therefore, she fears that the great intensity of her emotion will overwhelm her. Lacking a support system at the time of loss makes it tough for her to face her aching. Her emotional numbness is part of her defence against feeling vulnerable, which delays her full ability to grieve. Idealising the dead is also an unhealthy coping mechanism she engages in.
Task 3: How to Survive in a World Free of the Deceased
Hong Dae provided Eun Jeong with emotional support and helped to increase her self-esteem. When he leaves, she loses not only him but also her identity and emotional stability. As such, it becomes a problem in the life she is expected to live further. Even her spiritual adjustment is impeded because of the shattering of her worldview, and she is left with nothing to hold on to in life.
Task 4: New Relationship with the Deceased
It is impossible for Eun Jeong to form a new relationship after the death of Hong Dae or to create a continuation of healthy attachment when she is bound to him. Her attachment style drops her into limbo, refusing to find a space to accommodate his death in her life. This appears in her hallucinations, as she cannot let go.
Therapeutic Breakthrough and Catharsis
Eun Jeong finally starts therapy when encouraged by her brother, who noticed how her mental state was deteriorating. Here, she discloses that she had not cried since Hong Dae’s death and shows that she had numbed her emotional response. This emotional repression, common to avoidant attachment styles, was also the biggest hindrance to her healing.
Eun Jeong has one critical session of therapy where she reflects on a video clip that forces her to confront her feelings. This moment marks catharsis, the first emotions and the first tears since the death. Here, she begins catharsis and starts to accept and process the grief she had suppressed for so long.
Another critical session is witnessed when Jeong is asked to describe any of her childhood memories, and she particularly remembers one with her mother. Her parents don’t stay with her at present, and she admits that it’s because of her brother, since he came out as gay. “I d,on’t have any issues with my parents. They have done everything they could do”, says Jeong. While describing a childhood memory, Jeong recollects how one day his mother took a leave from the office, which was very rare since she used to work every day.
They were poor at that time and couldn’t afford certain luxuries. But that day her mother took her to a nearby amusement park and asked her what she wished to have for lunch. It was the happiest day of her life. But soon Jeong found out while enjoying a ride that her mother’s face was really pale and she looked depressed. Her mom was awfully silent that day. Jeong just went and sat beside her without saying a word. While describing the incident, Jeong said she truly wished to ask her mother what was troubling her, but she buried those unsaid thoughts deep in her heart. Suddenly, a drop of tears rolled down her face, and there she was bawling like a child. This was a breakthrough moment for her in therapy.
Feelings
In Jeong’s situation, the typical manifestation of sadness through tears was notably absent. Instead, her anger stemmed from two primary sources: the frustration of having to navigate life independently without his unwavering support, and a regressive sense of helplessness, feeling unable to function without him, which in turn fueled her anxiety. Feelings of guilt and self-reproach further intensified this emotional turmoil. Additionally, she experienced anxiety regarding her ability to return to her routine and manage her life alone. Emotional loneliness was palpable, as noted by Stroebe et al. Fatigue further constrained her, while a deep yearning for her loved one lingered. Following the death, she experienced significant numbness, as the overwhelming nature of the loss rendered it difficult for her mind to fully comprehend the reality of the situation.
Attachment Styles as Mediators in Grief
Bowlby’s attachment theory provides evidence on how attachment styles act as an intervening variable to bereavement. The avoidant pattern displayed results from Eun Jeong’s childhood experiences with her emotionally inaccessible parents. This leads to an avoidant type of attachment style, which she displays with Hong Dae. In that she depends emotionally on him but cannot confront or speak about her deeper feelings. The same attachment style may have contributed to Eun Jeong’s postponed emotional reaction to the loss.
Conclusion
Eun Jeong’s story in Be Melodramatic is an interesting study of how attachment styles mediate loss, for her avoidant attachment only postponed her emotional healing: her hallucinations of Hong Dae symbolised her fight to be fully absorptive of his death. By the end, with the assistance of therapy, Eun Jeong ends up finding her own way towards healing. Showing in detail how changes in attachment dramatically alter mourning and recovery.
