Análisis de los datos y detección de problemas

Continuity is a discourse which places the daughter within an ongoing relationship with her mother. It can refer to the relationship existing when the mother was alive, and therefore physically present with the daughter, as well as the relationship regenerated at a psychical level by the daughter after the death of the mother. A selection of key words and phrases from the text depicting continuity are listed in Appendix E .

Continuity incorporates ideas of:

social connection (the self-in-relationship)

mutuality (intersubjectivity - "we " and "she and I") psychical knowing and/or connectedness

spiritual connectedness

ideological beliefs surrounding connectedness 'bad ' or inappropriately continuing grief

Continuity is a multidimensional discourse made up by four distinctive components. Each component will be introduced supported by selected exemplars from the text.

The first component can be seen m words and phrases that reflect a

positive relationship:

We had an extremely close relationship.

I was very very loved to the point of distraction. I was more my mother 's friend.

She was more like a sister.

This discourse is characterised by talk of:

• Harmony • Comfort • Support • Encouragement • Affection • Caring • Love • Closeness

The second set of key words and phrases can be seen m words that reflect an intersubjectivity:

We were so close really, we created our lives around each other. We 'd chat away for hours.

We were so much alike, so close really. She was always there for me.

Continuity is also characterised by talk of: • Connectedness

• Engagement

• Reciprocity • Togetherness • Relatedness • Incorporation • Availability • Being with

Within this discourse the women's language is inclusive, with references to "we" and "us" as well as "she and I" as they speak of the remembered intersubjectivity of daughter and mother.

The third set of key words and phrases can be seen in words that relate

to a sense of perceived and/or desired ongoingness:

I still fee/ linked with her, she 's just there.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I see my mother. She is with me forever.

I 've become my mother.

[She is} watching over us benevolently.

Continuity is also characterised by talk of:

• Always • Linked • Connection • Present With • Continuing bonds • Spiritual presence

There is a remembered connection when the mother was both physically and socially present, and in relation with the daughter. Later, on a psychical and spiritual level, the women create, incorporate and integrate into their present lives an ongoing mode of relationality with their absent mothers. Thus, the daughter-self is depicted in ongoing

relation with her mother. The mother-daughter relationship tends to be valorised and the daughter positioned as one who cared, who cares, and/or who wants to care. A moral ethic of care for the other characterises these narratives about heroic mothers and daughters. The fourth set of key words and phrases subsumed within continuity reflect an active process of reconstructing the events surrounding the mother's life and death:

She [friend] has a lot of my memories. She 's giving these back to me and it 's fantastic.

They would talk about her, they didn 't let her memory die.

I need to talk, to try to understand ... .It was important to me to tell the whole story. It 's important for me to find out about my mother 's life.

There is clear evidence that the daughter recogruses and processes unresolved issues associated with her mother. The reconnection between mother and daughter becomes incorporated into a new understanding. This view incorporates the deceased mother into the daughter's current understanding of life.

Continuity is also characterised by talk of:

• Reconnection • Reintegration • Reawakening • Reconciling • Regained continuity

Discontinuity

Discontinuity is a discourse which places the daughter outside of the relational sphere. This discourse refers to death as the end of the mother-daughter relationship , but this study reveals that this discourse is a consequence of other losses as well. The women describe a number of different terms that herald in what discontinuity means to them.

Discontinuity incorporates ideas of:

the absence of the mother through illness and hospitalisation the loss of the mother to illness and medical regimes

the death of the mother

the social loss of the mother through silence, through the absence of talk and the loss to memory over time

the need to get over it (the medical/psychodynamic discourse on ' 'good grief")

the expectation of decathexis (a medical discourse)

the expectation of disengagement (a medical/psychodynamic discourse)

the hiding of death (a sociological discourse on the sequestration of death)

Discontinuity is marked by two themes which are introduced together with selected examples from the text. A selection of key words and phrases from the text depicting continuity is listed in Appendix F.

The first set of key words and phrases refers to the recognition of a disruption in the mother-daughter relationship. Sometimes the women refer to events and circumstances surrounding the mother's death as part of the disruption eg. illness and hospitalisation.

They found the tumour, it was too late.

She was mostly in hospital. She wanted to die at home. She hated it there.

She died. I was stunned with the shock. How dare she leave me I was so angry. But after a week or two, they don 't really want to know.

All that ihey want to do is to get on with their lives. Discontinuity is characterised by talk of:

• illness • Separation • Death • Absence • Change • Alienation

The second group of key words and phrases relate to the daughter's suffering over the death of her mother .

... that feeling, walking out of there just knowing we wouldn 't talk to her again. Its like the worst has happened, It 's a huge thing inside me.

The pain gets less, but it never really goes away. You never get over grief This discourse is also characterised by:

• Dislocation • Disappointment • Disconnection • Separation • Pain • Loss • Grief

Paradoxically, within this discourse there is a common expectation that the experience of loss and grief should be a temporary dislocation to life and work. One is expected to move on and create new relationships and relate to others as an autonomous and independent person. Themes of dissociation and self-control are common in the text.

I disassociated myself from it.

I just chopped off, I disassociated from it. I kept myself in control, I mean I control it.

It never got talked about.