It's About Time: Reconceptualizing the Role of Time in Loss and Trauma

Objective: This article explores the universal concept of time with the aim of enhancing our ability to help those affected by loss and trauma as well as those who study and treat them. The help comes in the form of a new framework that focuses on how we think about, and represent, time in scholarship and practice. Method: In this conceptual article, I outline traditional approaches to incorporating time in psychological research and discuss the many related concepts, such as anniversary reactions. The main aim of the article is to introduce a reconceptualized framework of time, including the assertion of meaningful time and markers in time. The premise of this framework is that social behavioral sciences should consider time as an uneven, meaningful, and overt force that influences trajectories of adaptation in the context of traumatic loss. Results: This article describes the ways in which markers in time push our current representations of time forward and, in doing so, alter the narrative around pathological grief by removing the time limitation on grief and mourning. This framework recognizes grief as a cyclical process that unfolds in the context of meaningful, rather than chronological, time. Conclusion: The article concludes by addressing the practical implications of this reconceptualization and the potential to greatly impact scholarship and clinical approaches to addressing the needs of clients coping with traumatic loss. Clinical Impact Satatement This article proposes a new framework from which to approach complex and traumatic grief, offering an additional tool to clinicians working with this population. The goal is to identify the role of time in the process of adaptation following traumatic loss and to further explore the quality and meaning of time in that context. The aim of this approach is to help normalize the cyclical process of bereavement and, further, to offer a contextual frame in which to develop targeted and time-informed interventions. In doing so, we shift from thinking about "vulnerable individuals" to "vulnerable time periods."