Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:191–200

DOI 10.1007/s11089-009-0227-5

Vicarious Grieving and the Media

R. Scott Sullender

Published online: 5 June 2009

# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009

Abstract This article addresses the question, “How has media growth and influence
impacted the way we grieve in the United States?” The media has grown dramatically in
recent years in variety, speed and intensity of information. Thus, the media’s coverage of
both real and fictional death and trauma has increased the incidence of vicarious grieving
and vicarious traumatization by the viewing public. Accessing the human innate capacity to
empathize, the media invites us to share in the sorrow of others and to bind together in
times of collective tragedy. At the same time, the intensity and scope of the public’s
exposure to unnatural death might be creating a generation that is actually less sensitive to
the needs of others.

Keywords Media . Vicarious grief . Empathy . Trauma . Death

Introduction

The growth of the mass media in the last forty years has been multifaceted. It included the
introduction and expansion of the internet, cell phones and various movie and entertainment
options. It also included the expansion of both the number and the size of televisions. There
are now not only televisions in several rooms of many homes, but there are also televisions
in airports, train depots, barbershops, department stores, gyms, planes and dentists’ offices.
Waiting rooms everywhere have televisions. Some gas stations offer television screens at
their gas pumps so customers can watch TV as their gas is pumped. We can even “watch”
television on our cell phone, Blackberry or in our car (if you dare). The television screen
has become omnipresent and instantly accessible in American society.
Media growth has led to another significant impact on American society—communi-
cation that is not only omnipresent but also virtually instantaneous. The rapidity of
communication is in great part due to the internet, email and cell phones, all of which
transmit information and images around the world in seconds. This technology has led

R. S. Sullender (*)
San Francisco Theological Seminary, 105 Seminary Road, San Anselmo, CA 94960, USA
e-mail: ssullender@sfts.edu
192 Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:191–200

people in the United States and most western nations to live with a sense of urgency, the
almost constant “breaking news” relating both grand and tragic developments “as they
happen” around the nation, with visual images provided by “cameras in the sky,” not to
mention the use of cell phones and video cameras that share images instantly on the
internet’s UTube and other image sharing sites.
Recently in a nearby city, a young man was beat up and eventually shot by two transit
police officers. The circumstances of his clash with officers and his eventual death were
unclear, but clearly the victim was unarmed and of a racial background different than those
of the police officers. Nearby friends caught the aftermath of the incident on their cell
phone cameras. Others called friends on their car phones. Soon images—even streaming
video—was available on UTube. Flashing news, graphic photos filled with blood and death
were instantly being transmitted around the city. News reporters fanned the flames by
interrupting the “regularly scheduled programs” with “breaking news.” Within the hour,
people were gathering at the site of the tragic incident, watching and waiting. Others
brought flowers and soon a makeshift memorial of flowers was being created on the
sidewalk next to the transit stop. In time more people gathered and more flowers appeared.
By the third hour the crowd was numbering over 1,000 people, and its mood was turning
from grief to anger. Fueled by long standing injustices, portions of the crowd turned violent,
destroying windows, over turning police cars, throwing rocks and bottles. In time the
violence was controlled. Yet, the memorial of flowers continued for days and in time a
permanent memorial was created for the victims of this tragedy. This incident like many
similar incidents around our nation represents the best and the worst of the impact of the
media upon how we grieve and respond to collective tragedies.
Graphic images sharpen the emotional impact of both the grand and the tragic, often far
beyond the capacity of words alone. Photo journalism has always worked on the premise
that the right image will tell “a thousand words.” Who can forget the powerful images of a
rescue worker carrying a limp body of a child out of a burning building or of airplanes
crashing into buildings, people crying in front of makeshift memorials, body remains and
caskets, surviving children alone and forlorn? These images are indelible in our memories.
When it comes to grief, especially vicarious grieving, we are visual creatures.

The roots of vicarious grieving

In one of his long neglected works, The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals,
Darwin (1872) suggested that some human emotions are innate, universal and have
“survival value.” He identified one such emotion with “survival value” as grief—the human
impulse to cry, sob and weep. Grieving provides a psychological release that enables the
mourner to vent his or her pain and begin the process of reclaiming the emotional energy
that once was attached to that which is now gone. Certainly this dynamic alone would be of
an evolutionary advantage for early humans, yet Darwin suggested that the expression of
weeping also served a social need, signaling to the mourner’s next of kin that he or she
needed help, was in pain, alone and/or frightened. Many scholars have linked grief’s origins
back to its earliest expression in an infant’s cry, which signals to others to rally around and
meet the child’s needs. Recent studies of the emotions of infants, as displayed in their facial
expressions, affirm that sorrow is one of the seven universal, innate facial expressions that
each of us inherits (NOVA 1986). Like the survival value of adult grief, the evolutionary
advantage of the infant’s innate instinct to cry is the production of aid by others. We know
from systems theory that communication is always a two-way street. Just as the mourner is
Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:191–200 193

programmed to cry, so too adults are programmed to respond to another’s tears with
sympathy and support. In short, empathy is built into humanity’s emotional make-up.
Parents of newborns are especially familiar with the pull on the heartstrings that comes with
hearing their child cry. Most of us, unless we are sociopaths, are touched by the tears and
sufferings of other humans and even other living creatures. We are instinctually drawn to
their aid.
All this leads to the suggestion that vicarious grieving is built into the human psyche. It
comes out of our capacity to be empathetic, to care for one another. It was as essential to
our survival in more primitive times as was our innate aggressive and competitive traits.
Empathy may still be essential to our survival. This realization gives new depth to the
meaning of St. Paul’s imperative to the early Christian community to, “Rejoice with those
who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15).
Grief is thus as infectious an emotion as joy or laughter. Indeed, just as a big belly laugh
triggers the laughter of others, so, too, the heartfelt tears of another make us cry. There is
something gloriously human (and perhaps Divine) about empathetic tears. So innate is this
capacity to empathize, that many of us willingly attend movies or read stories that we know
will have the emotional impact of making us cry.
That grief is meant to be shared seems a logical conclusion. There is some way in which
sorrow and community are fundamentally linked so that in times of sorrow we instinctually
want to gather together. Even the ancients knew that grief is vicariously experienced. In
antiquity, funerals were customarily facilitated by paid mourners who were given the job of
expressing intense grief in order to get the tears flowing for the public mourning. Tears thus
beget tears.

What are we crying about?

When we cry in a sad movie or in sympathy at a funeral, what is the basis for our tears? Is it
pure vicarious grieving or are we accessing or being reminded of our own unresolved
losses? Nationally known thanatologist, Therese A. Rando (1997) defined “vicarious
bereavement” as “the experience of loss and consequent grief and mourning that occurs
following the deaths of others not personally known by the mourner” (p. 259). Dr. Rando
posited that there are two types of vicarious bereavement, with the first or Type I being
purely vicarious—empathy with and for another’s sorrow. Thus, sympathetic tears at a
funeral may express sorrow solely for the current loss by another.
However, Dr. Rando’s second or Type II vicarious bereavement referred to the
experience wherein one feels vicarious grief for a mourner and the very sharing of
another’s sorrow serves as a reminder of our own losses and thus re-activates our own
unfinished grieving. In Type II, we are both grieving for a friend/family member and for
ourselves as well, in ways that are sometimes distinguishable and sometimes
indistinguishable.
Dr. Rando has suggested what most of us instinctually know—that in sharing another’s
grief, we do some of our own grief work as well. We are reminded of a loss similar to the
one the mourner is experiencing, though the reminder may not be a conscious reminder.
Even if we have not acknowledged our losses or grief in years, vicarious mourning may
lead to weeping afresh as though our long-ago loss just happened.
Most clergypersons have had the experience of a congregant unconnected to the
deceased emotionally collapsing in or after a funeral service. In conversations with the
individual, it becomes clear that the present loss reminds or reactivates in the parishioner a
194 Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:191–200

prior, still unresolved sorrow. So too, many therapists have had clients who have come to
them with a delayed grief reaction, triggered by a touching story or a distant reminder.
In fact, therapists are keenly aware of how many unresolved losses people consciously
or unconsciously carry around with them. It is my personal contention that 90 percent of the
time, when a new patient enters therapy, he or she is there because something has died, is
about to die or needs to die. Unresolved grief is far more universal and pervasive than we
recognize. So it is common then, when we witness and share in the sorrow of another, our
own unfinished grief is easily triggered.

Degrees of separation

What are the factors or variables that determine if we grieve vicariously? The probability
and intensity of vicarious grieving is first related to what we might call “degrees of
separation”—how near or distant in space and time one is from the actual mourner. The
degree of separation does not, however, refer to just physical distance, but psychological
and social distance as well. Do we identify with the victim in terms of gender, race and
ethnicity, family situation, age and circumstances? The greater the identification, the greater
the probability that vicarious grief will be triggered and the greater the intensity will that
vicarious grief be when it does occur. We empathize easily with whom we identify most.
Other scholars have suggested that the dynamic of vicarious grieving is more operative
among certain individuals, that is, there are temperamental differences among people that
make some people more empathetic or sensitive than others. It follows then that the more
one possesses natural empathy, the more one is prone to vicarious grieving. Women in this
culture tend to be more emotionally sensitive and more naturally empathetic than men. This
tendency is often grounded in an instinctive and/or developed capacity to respond to the
needs of an infant, a capacity that is known to facilitate formation of the infant-parent bond
vital for the healthy development of children. Yet, everyone, to the extent then that she or
he has a capacity for empathy, is open to the experience of vicarious grieving.
In Dr. Rando’s (1997) essay, it is suggested that vicarious grieving increases when and if
children are involved. Dr. Rando compared the public’s response to the first attack on the
World Trade Center, when no children were victimized, and the Oklahoma City Bombing,
which involved the deaths of 19 children in the preschool housed in the decimated Federal
Building. Media images of dead or suffering children, grieving parents and heartfelt
memorials filled with teddy bears and toys are powerful triggers for vicarious grief. Most
parents, even those removed by many miles and years from the victims, can identify with
these mourning parents. Vicarious grief is intensified in part by the anxiety experienced by
parents everywhere around the possibility that such a random tragedy could happen to one
of their own children. In a sense then, imagination is a key variable in vicarious grieving.
We grieve vicariously in part because we can imagine what it would be like to lose a child
in such a manner.
Another variable is the presence of unfinished or similar losses in the caregiver. If a
caregiver or even mere observer of a tragic loss has unresolved losses in his or her life, he
or she is more vulnerable to vicarious tears. Thus, incidents of loss in the caregiver’s life,
and his or her pattern of successfully or not-so-successfully resolving those losses, are
important variables. Some would argue, however, that every loss, particularly a loss that is
of major importance in one’s life, is never fully nor completely resolved and that we all live
with a residue of feelings about prior losses. Most of us, if placed in a situation where
another is suffering a loss similar to one in our own past, will, in fact, become more aware
Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:191–200 195

of our own internal grief. The degree of similarity between the actual mourner’s loss and
the hidden losses within us will increase the likelihood and intensity of the vicarious grief.
The similarity may be related to the type of death, the age of the victim or the
circumstances, such as the unpredictability of the death. Alternatively, the similarity
between the present and past loss may be not so much about the particulars of the loss, but
rather the emotions the loss evokes—the anger, the outrage or the helplessness. In short, the
presence and similarity of unresolved losses within us heightens our identification with the
actual mourner, and thus increases the likelihood of vicarious grieving.

Media’s role in vicarious grief

The modern mass media, particularly the televised media, serves as a catalyst of vicarious
grieving. The media helps us grieve by inviting viewers to participate vicariously in events
surrounding a collective loss or tragedy. Viewers virtually around the globe can participate
in a mourning ritual, whereas in a pre-modern era, the death would not even have been
known, much less acknowledged in rites, in most places around the world. In times of
collective sorrow, we now mourn together—not physically, but electronically—in living
rooms, offices and airports around the world.
In recent years, the 1997 death of Princess Diana comes to mind as one of the most
significant outpouring of collective sorrow and vicarious grieving, made possible by the
media. Millions of people, most of whom never knew Diana or met her, mourned together...
many of them in isolation. The mourning of Diana was a media event in the best sense of
the word. The media gave people far and wide, people from all walks of life, an opportunity
to come together in one common purpose, to share in the tragic loss of a remarkable
woman.
As a result, there were three distinct sets of mourners—the immediate friends and family,
those in attendance at the rite and those participating vicariously by watching it on
televisions at home or in offices. Each group grieved, and yet, each type or style of grieving
was different. Sometimes the media was caught in a conflict of interest between these two
or three sets of mourners and their respective needs.
What was particularly revealing in this event was the power of the media to shape as
well as reflect how people grieve. For example, when the Royal family did not respond
with the expressions of grief that the public expected, there was pressure in and through the
media for the Royals to change their ways. The media helped shape or became the channel
through which mourning customs and norms were shaped.
Clearly, in a media age, we now expect our presidents, kings and prime ministers to be
grief leaders too, to accurately and effectively verbalize the feelings of a nation. In the midst
of sorrow, especially collective sorrows, we often look for an emerging grief leader, who
can speak on behalf of us all, speak to and about the feelings, the pain and the meaning of
the unfolding events.
It should be noted that the influence of the media on grief and bereavement is also more
long term and indirect than we might imagine. The growth of the media in the last hundred
years has increased our sense of world community, our interconnectedness as a people.
Attachment theory argues that grief is made possible by attachment (Parkes 2006). The
more we are emotionally attached to that which is lost, the more intense our grief.
Further, the character of that attachment is reflected in the grief. The media and its
byproduct of a greater sense of belongingness, has increased our attachment, our emotional
investment in the world beyond our doorstep. Before the advent of worldwide media
196 Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:191–200

coverage with broad accessibility, few in America would have grieved intensely over the
death of a princess in England. Now when a tragedy strikes in New York City, people
around the world feel emotionally connected. All of this vicarious grief happens in part
because we have become emotionally attached. Long before any given tragedy occurs, the
media has increased our emotional attachment to places, people and events in the larger
world, creating a greater sense of community and thus setting the stage for a greater
incidence of, and occasion for, vicarious grieving.
In times of tragedy and trauma, the media’s most vital immediate role is in its
dissemination of factual information about the parameters of the tragedy. Accurate
information denies us denial and often thrusts us into the painful realities associated with
the initial stages of grief work. Moreover, through its analysis of the tragedy, the media also
offers the first interpretations of the meaning of the loss. “Individual stories of death,
escape, bravery and good fortune all become part of the narrative of the event,” writes Ellen
S. Zinner and Mary Beth Williams (1999). They continue:
A community tragedy is less about buildings falling than it is about the people of the
community. How the people tell the story of the event colors recovery, and communal
events today are more widely shared via the media, shaping and reshaping a shared
perspective. (pp. 249–250)
Every loss, particularly tragic and horrific losses, carries a disruption of the assumptive
world. A part of the grieving process, the process of bringing closure to this pain, includes a
process of making meaning out of the tragedy. The media increasingly plays the role of a
maker of meaning or an attributor of various diverse meanings.
When does media coverage cease to be the means of disseminating factual information
from which we make meaning and when does it subtly start to influence the formation of
that meaning? For example, what did the events of 9/11 and its aftermath mean? Were we at
war, tracking down criminals, exacting revenge or being punished by God? Each of these
different meanings were reported by media and these meanings differed depending on
which news reporter was reporting, from which news channel and from which nation the
broadcast emitted. Like it or not, the media is increasingly playing a role traditionally
reserved for theologians, politicians and historians.
Humans do have this powerful innate desire to empathize and share in the sorrow of
others. As noted, it is natural and universal, although the trait certainly varies in intensity
from person to person. In this sense, the media provides us with what we want and perhaps
need. We long to share in the sorrow of others, in part because of our natural empathy, in
part because of our need to connect in an otherwise lonely world, and in part because it
helps us do our own grief work.

Trauma and vicarious traumatization

Bereavement and trauma are interwoven and interrelated. All trauma includes some element
of loss and grief, but not all bereavements are traumatic. Trauma introduces another
emotional element or highlights one emotional element among the many associated with
bereavement. That emotional element is anxiety or fear. Trauma or traumatic bereavement
frightens us, frightens us beyond reason, often suddenly and irrationally so. Such fear over-
rides the sorrow, at least in the initial stages of bereavement.
Interest in trauma studies and trauma theory has increased significantly in recent years.
The related psychological disorder—Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—has become
Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:191–200 197

popularized and is probably more commonplace than professionals previously realized. We

now know that trauma can also be experienced vicariously. Rescue workers and therapists
who work closely with the survivors and victims of tragedies often experience the
symptoms and signs of trauma themselves.
Vicarious traumatization has some similar dynamics to vicarious grieving. The common
mechanism is empathy—our capacity to absorb the pain, feelings and even fear of another
person. We know from the studies of empathy in the context of traumatization that empathy
is not always a good thing (Rothschild 2006). Sometimes empathy can be so strong, or the
horror of the trauma can be so great, that the caregiver is emotionally overwhelmed. Over
time, the result is compassion fatigue or emotional burnout. We also know from some of
these studies of therapeutic relationships, that empathy may also be unconscious as well as
conscious. That is, sometimes the body of a caregiver will absorb stress automatically, and
subsequently, the caregiver will unconsciously exhibit trauma-like symptoms in sympathy
with the victim for whom he or she is caring.
Most observers of the media believe that there is a growing amount and intensity of
trauma displayed on television and in movies. This is true both in “real” news programs and
in the fictional drama programming. The recent wave of crime scene investigation programs
on American television seems to be one example of this fascination with the graphic details
of death and dying.
Clearly, the result of this trend is that the media has become a catalyst for vicarious
trauma as well as vicarious grieving. The mere viewing of horrific, sudden and violent
events can create trauma or trauma-like symptoms in the viewing public. As with vicarious
grieving, some people who experience vicarious traumatization might be responding on the
basis of empathy alone, but many others are being “re-traumatized.” The current televised
program or trauma event triggers the viewer’s memories of their own prior, unresolved
personal trauma.
This realization of the role of the media in creating vicarious trauma or re-traumatizing
viewers raises some serious concerns. Many viewers are isolated and/or do not realize that they
are experiencing trauma symptoms. Trauma-like grief is best healed when it is shared—it cries
out for support and comfort. Yet in this electronic age, more and more viewers are viewing
televised trauma alone, isolated from networks of support. This trend should add to our sense of
urgency about the need for grief groups in congregations, hospitals and community agencies.
Grief and trauma work needs to occur in community, not in isolation.

Vicarious struggles with meaning

All loss, especially all trauma, involves a crisis of meaning. This dimension has been
described as disruptions in the mourner’s assumptive world. “Assumptive world” or
worldview refers to all of the conscious and unconscious assumptions that we take for
granted about ourselves, life and the world (Parkes 2006). Our assumptive world is
constructed over time and serves as our cognitive map to reality. Even in the most
“ordinary” grieving, there is some re-examining of one’s assumptions or cognitive maps.
Disruptions in one’s assumptive world occur most often and most dramatically in loss
situations that are unexpected, traumatic and horrific. In the context of such traumatic
losses, mourners’ assumptions may be “shattered” (Janoff-Bulman 1992). Questions such
as, “Why did this happen? Why did she die or did I live? What is the meaning of this event
for my life? Did I do something wrong to cause/contribute to this tragedy? Can life be
trusted? Is life good? Where was God in the midst of this tragedy?” become urgent. All
198 Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:191–200

traumatic losses carry this crisis of meaning or, if you will, a crisis of faith. Unless this
element of the grief process is worked through satisfactorily, the healing is not complete.
In the essay noted above, Dr. Rando (1997) suggested that there was another type of
vicarious bereavement that involved this dimension of the grief process. She suggested that
some people so identify with the actual mourner that they experience violations of their
assumptive world in response to, and in sympathy with, the mourner. The witnessing of
events that are senseless, random, horrific, and especially involving innocent children, can
shatter theological and psychological assumptions about the nature of life, justice and one’s
own being. Vicarious bereavement under these circumstances resonates within us as a
“crisis of faith,” causing us to rethink and then doubt or reaffirm, our theological
assumptions. In the realm of philosophical or psychological literature, this would be called
an existential crisis. There is an existential crisis in most losses, and especially in traumatic
losses.
Members of the clergy and other pastoral caregivers are uniquely equipped to minister to
the bereaved, not only in terms of their emotions and social bonds, but especially in terms
of these violations of one’s assumptive theology. Helping others to identify and talk about
their unresolved meaning issues can only help the overall grief process move forward.
Clergy and congregations ought to be at the forefront of grief ministries.

Implications of long-term trends

As the media provides an ever-increasing degree of trauma, thus giving rise to far more
occasions of vicarious grieving and traumatization, another concern—almost at the opposite
end of the spectrum—has risen. Is our exposure to trauma, death and loss too much? Does
the media’s over-exposure of death, violence and tragedy desensitize us to the real dramas
and needs that surround us, sometimes in our immediate neighborhoods?
Some scholars have noted that there has been a gradual shift in the content of the media
in recent years that could be summarized as more incidents of unnatural deaths than ever
before, while at the same time offering fewer and fewer opportunities to witness natural
deaths. Unnatural deaths, such as murders, are not only routinely featured on the 11 o’clock
news, they have also become the commonplace focus of many fictional television series and
full-length movies. We are not only seeing more unnatural death on a daily basis, but we are
also seeing much more graphic images of death, including dead and mutilated bodies and
violent attacks upon victims.
At the same time, most Americans see less natural death than ever before. As medical
science advances in the United States, the average lifespan has been extended. It has also
extended the length of time individuals live with chronic disease and infirmities. The infirm
elderly increasingly spend many more years at the end of their lives out of the view of their
families and their communities in extended care facilities. Moreover, when the elderly
infirm face life-threatening failures, the beginnings of the natural death process, the elderly
are often transferred to critical care facilities—hospitals and emergency rooms—to provide
in extremis care. Families often find that the medical advances of monitoring machines,
intubation and pain medication make it impossible for them to witness “a natural death.”
This trend stands in contrast to the times, as recently as a century ago, when families
observed and shared in the natural dying process of loved ones in the family home. The
impact of this trend is most keenly felt by younger generations. It is not uncommon for
young people to reach their early adult years having never attended a funeral, much less
observed an actual death or a natural dying process. (At the same time, some young people
Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:191–200 199

in crime-ridden areas of our nation have attended too many funerals of those who have died
violent deaths.) Thus, many young people literally do not know what to do, how to behave
or how to recognize or manage their feelings of grief. What they do learn about grief and
the rites of grief, they learn from the media’s portrayal of (violent) death. It is the media that
is increasingly teaching all of us, particularly our younger generations, how to grieve and
how to mourn. How do we think they are doing?
Television watchers find that, in many cases, weekly fictional television dramas
remove death and dying from their natural emotional context, i.e. grief and
bereavement, in the same way that such dramas may remove love as the natural
emotional context for sex. Television programming focuses more on the event of death
or the dying than upon the aftermath of death. I suspect that this is so because death
is dramatic and newsworthy, while grief, especially long-term grief, is considered to
be lacking in drama and newsworthiness.
Thus, when the media does describe grief, either in news or fictional programming, it is
as a short term, intense phenomenon. Media programming does not normally allow
extended coverage of a mourner’s anguish. Thus viewers are left with the impression that
grieving longer than a few days is atypical if not abnormal. In spite of the increasing
exposure to unnatural death on the various media outlets, we are still, as many scholars
posit, a death-denying and grief-avoiding culture.
So, what is the long-term effect of this day-after-day, year-after-year witnessing of
horrific, tragic and sad events, be they real or fictional, without a means or context for
processing our grief? How do our psyches and our souls manage this constant barrage of
grief-inducing tragedy?
Media viewing, by its very nature, is a passive activity, and yet empathy, the innate
human response to tragedy, pushes us to action, to rush to the aid of another, to help.
We do see occasional outpourings of donations and support from the viewing public
in response to natural disasters, yet the percentage of the viewing public that actively
empathizes in these cases is small. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the media’s
programming may significantly contribute to a whole generation being raised on a
dynamic of de-sensitization. The important moral and ethical question that should be
our focus in the decades to come is, “What are the long-term effects of media de-
sensitization on the American culture?”

Conclusion

In an age of increasing media coverage, the media has become a catalyst for both increased
incidents of vicarious grieving and vicarious traumatization. To some extent, our capacity to
be empathetic and share in another’s grief is both good for the social order and a helpful
way to do our own unfinished grief work. Yet, dangers lurk as the level of traumatization
displayed in the media grows in intensity, frequency and horror.
Media viewing is often done in isolation and creates a passivity that works against the
natural human impulse to come to the aid of another. What will be the long-term effects of
increasing levels of violence and trauma displayed in the media? Are we, as a people,
becoming more callous and desensitized to the needs of others and ourselves? Our
challenge is to maintain awareness of the danger of over-exposure to violence and tragedy
in the media and thus regulate our media viewing while, at the same time, working to use
the role and influence of the media to facilitate healing and community, especially for those
who grieve.
200 Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:191–200

References

Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London: Murray.
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychology of trauma. New York: Free
Press.
Life’s first feelings. (1986). NOVA. James Lipscomb & WGBH Educational Foundation.
Parkes, C. M. (2006). Love and loss: The roots of grief and its complications. London: Routledge.
Rando, T. A. (1997). Vicarious bereavement. In S. Strack (Ed.), Death and the quest for meaning: Essays in
honor of Herman Feifel (pp. 257–274). Northdale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
Rothschild, B. (2006). Help for the helper: The psychophysiology of compassion fatigue and vicarious
trauma. New York: Norton.
Zinner, E. S., & Williams, M. B. (Eds.) (1999). When a community weeps: Case studies in group
survivorship. Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel.