The Self After Interpersonal Loss

Losing someone can feel like losing a part of oneself. Do we need others to be ourselves? What happens to the self when we lose a loved one?

How can people be adequately supported in times of grief?SAIL combines, for the first time, phenomenological evaluation, computational modeling, neuroimaging, psychopharmacology, and behavioral experiments to characterize the grieving self and to develop a novel, mechanism-based intervention with the goal of supporting adaptative processing of the loss.In an aging society, where people might outlive their partner by decades, it becomes crucial to improve support during times of grief, and to develop treatment options for those with prolonged grief disorder who are at a 20% increased mortality risk.

Previous psychological research suggests that the loss of a close person affects self-identity, an aspect of the higher cognitive self.

If the basis of the self, the bodily self, is also affected is unknown.Here, I combine the perspective of grief as a learning process with my previous work on the bodily self which I argue to be inherently social.

In aim 1, I will use behavioral measures, neuroimaging, and computational modeling to characterize the self after interpersonal loss.

In aim 2, I will employ a double-blind, active-placebo-controlled, between-subject study to test whether the serotonin-receptor-agonist psilocybin can improve adaptation to the loss experience by supporting the re-establishment of the bodily self. Psilocybin is suggested to cause a transient shift from reliance on prior experiences towards current sensations.

I will utilize this shift combined with a self-touch intervention to support re-learning about the bodily self in grieving individuals.

With this project, I aim to:Identify the psychological and neurobiological consequences of grief on the self, andDevelop a novel, mechanism-based intervention to improve adaptation to a ubiquitous cause of human suffering: the death of a close loved one.