Episode 110: Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor

<p>Mary-Frances O’Connor, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona where she conducts studies to better understand the grief process both psychologically and physiologically. She is a leader in the field of prolonged grief, a clinical condition in which people do not adjust to the acute feelings of grief and show increases in yearning, avoidance, and rumination. Her work primarily focuses on trying to tease out the mechanisms that cause this ongoing and severe reaction to loss. In particular, she is curious about the neurobiological, immune, and cardiovascular factors that vary between individual responses to grief.</p> <p>Dr. O’Connor’s book: The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss gives us a fascinating new window into one of the hallmark experiences of being human. O’Connor has devoted decades to researching the effects of grief on the brain, and in this book, she makes cutting-edge neuroscience accessible through her contagious enthusiasm and guides us through how we encode love and grief. With love, our neurons help us form attachments to others; but, with loss, our brain must come to terms with where our loved ones went, or how to imagine a future that encompasses their absence.</p> <p>Based on O’Connor’s own trailblazing neuroimaging work, research in the field, and her real-life stories, The Grieving Brain does what the best popular science books do, combining storytelling, accessible science, and practical knowledge that will help us better understand what happens when we grieve and how to navigate loss with more ease and grace.</p> <p>In today’s episode:</p> <p>How Mary-Frances got into the field of bereavement science</p> <p>Why it is so hard and takes so long to understand that when someone dies it is forever</p> <p>Why grief causes so many emotions</p> <p>What happens to the brain during grief</p> <p>How our understanding of grief has changed over time</p> <p>Why do some people adapt better than others when someone passes away</p