"Grief Worlds": A conversation with Matthew Ratcliffe (Keywords: Bereavement;Emotional experience;Loss;Identity disruption; Meaning;Phenomenology)

From The Philosopher, vol. 113, no. 2 ("Crossing the Floods")

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In this conversation with Kathleen Higgins, Matthew Ratcliffe proposes that grief is experienced as a dynamic emotional process through which a bereaved person navigates a profound, protracted disturbance of their experiential world. For Ratcliffe and Higgins, philosophy can make a valuable contribution to our understanding of grief experience that could be of practical benefit to people who are grieving. By studying the inner workings of grief, we can also learn a great deal about the nature of human emotional experience more broadly.

Kathleen Higgins (KH): Your book, Grief Worlds: A Study of Emotional Experience, explores a range of philosophical questions raised by grief. Why do you think grief is a philosophically interesting topic?

Matthew Ratcliffe (MR): Many who experience grief find aspects of it utterly bewildering in ways that lend themselves to philosophical questioning. People frequently say that grief is hard to articulate, and difficult or impossible for others to comprehend. Grief Worlds was written as part of a larger project on the phenomenology of grief, the principal aim of which was to develop a detailed, wide-ranging, and integrated account of what it is to experience grief. The project was carried out in partnership with my colleague, Louise Richardson, and researchers Emily Hughes and Becky Millar. We focused on aspects of grief that have been poorly understood or, in some cases, barely even recognized.

As part of the project, we conducted a qualitative survey to investigate different features of grief. The first-person accounts of bereavement and grief provided by respondents raise questions of philosophical significance. For example, one respondent says, ‘There are no words in the English language to actually explain how the grief feels or changes.’  Is that true? Are there certain aspects of experience that we really cannot articulate? Another respondent says, ‘It’s hard to put into words how devastating it feels and how alone and empty. Words don’t explain the feeling. You’re torn apart totally.’ What is it to be ‘torn apart’? Someone else says, ‘It has impacted every aspect of my life … everything has changed, and new norms created. The world has shifted on its axis and I feel I am a stranger in the current world, feeling my way.’ So, everything seems unfamiliar and distant; one relates to the world in a different way. How do we make sense of such experiences? These are some of the questions we wanted to explore.

KH: Why do people find grief so difficult to talk about?

MR: The effects of bereavement are highly diverse and impact our lives in a range of different ways, but many experiences of bereavement involve a profound upheaval, a radical change in the whole structure of one's life. Although there may be various reasons why these experiences are difficult to articulate, certain key themes can be further illuminated through phenomenological philosophy. For the most part, you might say we take a kind of world for granted – a practically significant world structured by our habits, expectations, projects, and relations that operates as a background to our lives. When we are faced with the disruption of that very world, there is a linguistic challenge: how do you describe the loss of what you previously took for granted? The difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that this loss profoundly affects our relations with others. It is as though one's own world has been shattered, yet other people’s lives carry on, uninterrupted. There is a bizarreness to it – the gulf between one's own world and theirs.

Grief is a process that involves grasping over time how one's world must change.

Language can do very strange things too, where you try to say something and it repeatedly misfires. An example I draw upon in the book is somebody going home after collecting their dead husband’s possessions from the hospital and thinking to themselves, How does that even make sense? How can I say that I'm going ‘home’ after this? How can I go home to this place where ‘we’ live, ‘our’ home, now that he has died? It is as if one's words themselves are torn apart by this clash between worlds, the world before and after the bereavement.

KH: Yes, and this might not be intelligible to someone else. To a person who is not involved, it might seem perfectly reasonable for the bereaved person to say, ‘I am going home’, since they are going back to the same house as they always did. The significance of the word home to the person grieving is completely different, though.

MR: Exactly. In the book, I suggest that certain temporarily extended emotional experiences, such as grief, involve recognizing events to be significant in ways that undermine the very experiential world within which those events are encountered. There is a kind of tension at the heart of these emotional experiences. The rug is pulled out from under one’s feet, so to speak, but the practical meanings adhering to one’s surroundings do not change immediately. Rather, the previous world of meaning endures and can remain at odds with our explicit acceptance of what has changed.

I propose that, amongst other things, grief is a process that involves grasping over time how one's world must change. This process involves all sorts of tensions between what is now the case and what one continues to experience. This has interesting philosophical implications when we consider the nature of belief. People talk about knowing that it is true that someone has died but being unable to believe it, or believing it to be true despite it seeming impossible. You know that someone has died, but continue to inhabit a world that, to some degree, runs contrary to this fact.

KH: How do you define grief?

MR: Grief is not a single emotion, or a cluster of emotions, or a mood, but a structured process that involves engaging with what has happened over a period of time. Philosophers often ask, what is the object of an emotion? What is it directed at? What is it about? I suggest that grief is directed at a loss of possibilities, which is something that one comprehends and navigates over time. This involves the loss of possibilities for both oneself and others.

There is perhaps a wider sense of loss that haunts many lives – thoughts of what might have been, the kind of life you could have had, can be very difficult. In general, I would exclude such cases from the category of grief, though. Otherwise, the boundaries between grief, regret, disappointment, and so forth become unclear. Nevertheless, genuine grief can occur without concrete loss. During the project, we collected testimonies on experiences of involuntary childlessness, in which respondents described a deep grief over not having children. This can be understood in terms of the loss of possibilities that were integral to their sense of who they are and who they are going to become. It is the loss of those possibilities that are bound up with our identity, the structure of our lives, and our movement into the future, that really constitutes grief. 

KH: It is interesting that you think grief is not an emotion, yet, in some sense, you take it as a paradigm for thinking about emotions more broadly. How do you make sense of that?

It is the loss of those possibilities that are bound up with our identity, the structure of our lives, and our movement into the future, that really constitutes grief. 

MR: When I said that grief is not an emotion, what I should have said is that grief is not a brief, episodic emotion. Grief is a structured and - to varying degrees - unified emotional process. In philosophy, there has been an overemphasis on brief emotional episodes abstracted from their broader context. Much of the literature on emotions is concerned with rather superficial things: Brenda is happy that it is her birthday, Sarah is sad that she didn't get the job, that kind of thing. When it comes to the phenomenology of human emotional life, it is probably more informative to consider how emotions are experienced as dynamic processes that unfold over time.

Rather than looking at various emotions and trying to identify their constituent parts – subtypes of fear or sadness, for example – maybe we should look to the language of movement. There is a huge lexicon of terms for emotional movement; we talk about being ‘thrown’, ‘stunned’, ‘bowled over’ and so on. By looking at the dynamics of emotional processes and the ways in which we navigate upheaval, I think we can get a much richer, more encompassing perspective on human emotional life.

KH: I’m interested in the idea that grief changes one’s whole world. Can you say more about the transformation that grief brings about?

MR: I think there are various aspects to this. It depends, to some extent, on the nature and circumstances of the bereavement, and the point one is at in a grieving process. I have already mentioned some of the difficulties involved in comprehending the differences between the world that was and the world one now faces after the bereavement. One faces the task of bridging the gulf between these realities, often over a lengthy period of time. However, often when someone dies, you lose the very person to whom you would have previously turned for help in navigating a disturbance of your world. And, for many, it is not as straightforward as having a ‘pre-bereavement world’ and a ‘post-bereavement world’. There is a place in between that people describe as strange, unfamiliar, and directionless – a collapse of normativity. One really doesn't know how to go on; there is no fact of the matter about what should come next and what one should do, because the structure of one's life and world has, to varying degrees, fallen apart.

There is also a distinction between one’s own world of grief and the world of others that often carries on undisturbed. This involves a sense of being pulled out of a consensus world within which one was previously integrated. Another interesting aspect to consider is that being with another person opens up possibilities in distinctive ways. Think about how the experience of going for a walk with one person can be radically different from walking in the same place with someone else. So, the loss of a relationship results in the loss of this more dynamic sense of encountering certain kinds of possibilities in certain ways.

KH: Yes, and there can be a breakdown in relationships in general, not just an end to the relationship with the person who has died. Of course, if you are fortunate, other people will try to step in and help in various ways, but it doesn’t create the transition that one is looking for. The whole idea of transitioning to a ‘new normal’, as some might say, seems incredibly problematic once you start analysing this ‘middle space’ where, as you put it, normativity collapses. This middle world, as it is being experienced by the bereaved, does not seem to have enough shape or structure for someone to feel as if they are fully inhabiting it. Do you think grief is a process that comes to an end?

MR: I am not sure about this. Certain aspects of grief might settle down or come to an end, but even after many years, one can still feel a profound sense of loss over the death of a person. One does not simply forget and move on. There is a process of reorienting oneself within the world, perhaps involving a transformation of one’s sense of self. It changes not just the character of the world we end up in but can change our whole attitude towards life. The question of whether grief has an endpoint is not addressed in my book; what do you think?

One does not simply forget and move on. There is a process of reorienting oneself within the world, perhaps involving a transformation of one’s sense of self. 

KH: I don’t think that grief has an endpoint, though many people would like to think that it does. Obviously, if you are distressed by something, it would be nice to think that it is going to come to an end, and I agree that some facets of grief settle down over time. It is hard to explain what is going on, however, when things do seem largely to have settled down, then suddenly, out of the blue, this overwhelming sense of loss shows up again. Some people are very troubled by this; they thought they had made progress and now they are back to square one, so to speak. Do you think they are using the wrong model to understand grief?

MR: Maybe. When someone dies, life can unravel very quickly; you lose a relationship, and with this you might also lose a home, shared projects, friendships, habits, and/or pastimes. Is this a singular experience of loss over which we grieve, or are these multiple, individual losses? Also, for many of us, experiences that occur at one point in life can reawaken earlier losses. Do we want to say that they are separate losses? When it comes to thinking about emotional experience, there is a philosophical tendency towards abstraction and tidiness that has led us astray. I am happy to leave things a little messy, as I think that is the way they are.

KH: Yes, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that a lot of things are going on at once; you must consider the whole dynamic as things unfold over time. Do you think an awareness of the ideas we have been discussing could be beneficial to someone who is grieving?

MR: Yes, I think philosophers can make an important contribution here. People who are grieving often say they are worried that there is something wrong with them. Is this normal? Do other people feel like this? These anxieties can exacerbate suffering, so the recognition that others go through something similar can be beneficial. Something else philosophers can do is emphasize the extent to which grief is not an individual emotional experience that unfolds in some deterministic fashion; it is a fragile process that depends to a huge extent on the grieving person’s support structure. How one grieves depends on whether there is an enduring sense of connection with others, whether others provide support, and whether certain social structures remain in place.

When it comes to thinking about emotional experience, there is a philosophical tendency towards abstraction and tidiness that has led us astray.

This kind of work can also help us to distinguish experiences of grief that we might refer to as ‘typical’, in all their diversity, from those where people may require exceptional forms of support. Sometimes, the structure of your world is lost to such an extent that you cannot rebuild it alone; you are trapped in an enduring state of disorientation or indeterminacy. There are experiences of grief that involve a constant preoccupation with the deceased person; others may involve forms of avoidance, and so on. I am hesitant to refer to such experiences of grief as pathological, but there are instances where grief might be said to ‘go wrong’ somehow, and philosophy can help to distinguish between the different forms that this might take in a more nuanced way.

KH: Often, when people are grieving, they think of themselves as being massively depressed, yet you make a distinction between grief and depression. How do they differ?

MR: What is striking about experiences of grief is the dynamism – the contrast between different worlds and the perspective-shifting that occurs as the experience unfolds over time. In first-person accounts of depression, however, there is often a feeling of stasis; there are no possibilities outside of the predicament of the depression. There are forms of interpersonal experience involved in both grief and depression that might look superficially similar but turn out to be quite different. For many people who are depressed, there is a sense of irrevocable disconnection from other people; the possibility of interpersonal connection is no longer part of one's world. It might seem like this is also the case for those who are grieving, but often what one lacks are actual interpersonal connections. A sense of possibility remains; one can still entertain the idea of being connected with others and can remember what it was like to connect with the person who died. By emphasising the dynamic aspects of grief and its interpersonal structure, we can distinguish it from many instances of depression, whereas much thinner accounts of symptoms will miss those differences altogether.

KH: The importance of opportunities for meaningful interpersonal connection for the bereaved person should be further considered. Maybe we ought to think about ways in which our societies could become more friendly to grieving people. When someone dies, certain socio-cultural practices take effect. It is considered reasonable, for example, for the bereaved to take some time off work. Beyond that, though, there is not much accommodation on a social level. I do not think we should go back to wearing mourning clothes, but they did serve a useful purpose in letting people know that the person in question had experienced loss and was probably grieving.

MR: I agree – all sorts of social and cultural prescriptions can provide a kind of scaffolding that helps us to interact with each other in such circumstances, a framework for sustaining a sense of connection.

KH: People frequently feel that they do not know what to do or say and therefore would prefer not to encounter someone who is grieving at all. This further aggravates many of the problems we have discussed, such as the difficulty of articulating and comprehending the experience of grief. Still, certain culturally established practices, such as funerals, involve assuming roles and interacting with people in a particular way, so even if your world has fallen apart, you might still find there are ways to feel connection with others.

How one grieves depends on whether there is an enduring sense of connection with others.

However, one can easily imagine a situation in which external, codified norms might lead to the expectation that grieving evolves in a clear-cut way. Sometimes people talk about a funeral bringing closure, and in a certain sense, that is a meaningful thing to say. But the idea that you ought to be able to move on after a defined mourning period, which may not match your personal emotional trajectory, is not helpful for everyone. It is important to appreciate the diversity and individuality of people’s grief experiences.

MR: Yes, individual grief experiences can vary in numerous ways and are influenced by many different factors. I agree that it is important to acknowledge this, particularly when considering how best to support someone who is grieving. At the same time, we can also identify consistent themes in first-person accounts of grief that suggest there are commonalities between many experiences of grief. It is my hope that, in addition to being of interest to philosophers, the material in my book, and in your book on grief too, will help people to better understand their own experiences of grief.

Matthew Ratcliffe is a professor of Philosophy at the University of York. He works primarily on phenomenology, philosophical psychology, and philosophy of psychiatry. His book, Grief Worlds: A Study of Emotional Experience, is published by MIT Press and freely available in full via the project website: https://www.griefyork.com/  

Kathleen Higgins is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. She specializes in aesthetics, philosophy of emotion, philosophy of music, and nineteenth and twentieth-century continental philosophy (in particular, the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche). She is author of many articles and eight books, most recently Aesthetics in Grief and Mourning (University of Chicago Press, 2024). She is also editor or co-editor of numerous other books, on such topics as world philosophy, aesthetics, Nietzsche, German Idealism, erotic love, and the philosophy of Robert C. Solomon. She is a former president of the American Society for Aesthetics.

First published online 28 June 2026

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