A Grief Intervention Embedded Within a Chinese Cultural Practice for Bereaved Parents

This chapter presents a case example of how a cultural practice, Chinese painting, can be minimally adapted to become a grief intervention. This new framework of cultural adaptation suggests that instead of transporting research from the clinic to community, it is feasible to move from the community to the clinic—to offer patients a positive, holistic therapeutic experience that aligns with their culture and values. Finally, the chapter outlines how the experience taps key psychological mechanisms of grief organically, as a by-product of participating in a creative cultural practice. To develop a culturally adapted grief intervention, it is worthwhile to explore how culture may affect normal and disordered grief and to identify what cultural characteristics may facilitate or hinder the return to mental well-being. The chapter reviews child loss within the Chinese sociocultural context in terms of two dimensions: the conditions of everyday life (e.g., social-economic-political systems) and the cultural meaning system (e.g., values and norms, particularly the philosophical and religious elements). The chapter explores how the uniqueness and richness of the culture encourages a more holistic, open, and flexible approach for an intervention