The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Why We Grieve Celebrities: The Psychology of Loss & Liam Payne

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, my name is Emily. I am a master's student studying clinical psychology at Southampton. I bought the book The Clinical Psychologist Collective to help myself prepare for my first round of doctorate applications and I'm so glad I did. Seeing how others have reflected on their journeys has been so insightful and it's given me a lot to reflect about with my own journey and skills. It's also helped to put things into perspective and reminded me that if I don't get onto the doctorate this year, that's okay. I think the most unexpected pleasure of this book, however, was just how inspirational

Starting point is 00:00:41 each and every person's journey was, and using these stories as my morning motivation each day has been such a pleasure, I'm almost reluctant to come to the end. Why do we grieve for people we've never even met? If Liam Payne's death hit you hard, or you're still feeling the weight of it now, you're not alone. There's a psychological reason why celebrity losses can feel just as painful as losing someone in your own life.

Starting point is 00:01:08 And if you're a mental health professional, understanding why this happens is key to helping people process these emotions in a healthy way. The way that grief works is we don't just mourn the person. We grieve the memories, the moments, and even the future that we had imagined for that person. Just like when Matthew Perry died, Friends fans weren't just mourning Chandler Bing. the memories, the moments and even the future that we had imagined for that person. Just like when Matthew Perry died, Friends fans weren't just mourning Chandler Bing.

Starting point is 00:01:29 They were mourning the hope of another season that would never come. For One Direction fans, this loss might feel much bigger than just one person. Many had hoped for a reunion, another album or one last tour, but now that possibility has gone. It reminds me of when Take That broke up in the 1990s. The reaction was so intense that a helpline was set up for devastated fans to call. And in that case, no one had even died. So why does this type of grief feel so real? Why can it linger for months or even years?

Starting point is 00:02:00 Today we are diving into the psychology of grieving celebrities, how it affects us and what we can do about it. Hi, I'm Dr Marianne Trent, a clinical psychologist and author of the Grief Collective and host of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. Grief is something I have spent a lot of time supporting people through, both in my clinical work and through my writing. It's also something I've experienced and it is not nice at all. But something I do see time and time again is that grief doesn't always look the way

Starting point is 00:02:35 that people expect it to. It also doesn't only show up when losing a close family member or friend or pet for that matter. It can show up in many different ways, including mourning a public figure that you've never met in person. If you've been struggling with Liam Payne's death or any other celebrity or public figure loss, your feelings are valid. The way that our brains work that doesn't necessarily separate the people that have been a big part of our lives from those who have been in our

Starting point is 00:03:04 day-to-day lives. And if you are a mental health professional, understanding why celebrity grief can be so profound, this can help support your clients in a more compassionate and informed way. So why do we grieve celebrities? One of the most fascinating things about human psychology is that we can form emotional bonds with people we've never even met. This is what is known as a parasocial relationship, which I know does sound like kind of a complicated term, so let's break it down together. Para means beside or alongside and social refers to our relationship with others. So a parasocial relationship

Starting point is 00:03:43 is a one-sided emotional connection that we develop with a public figure. That could be a musician, an actor, an author or even a content creator for that matter. We may never actually directly interact with that person in any way, so they may never know that we exist. But the important factor is that they have been a presence in our life, sometimes for years, maybe even decades. When we think about it, Lee and Payne and One Direction were part of so many people's teenage years. They were there during highs and lows through their music, interviews and live performances. And when someone who's been part of your

Starting point is 00:04:21 life in that way is suddenly gone and in such a traumatic way it can feel deeply personal and deeply distressing. The same thing happened when Matthew Perry died. For so many people Friends was a source of comfort, laughter and nostalgia. It absolutely reminds me of my youth, of carefree times, of friendships and a different time in our lives. His death wasn't just about losing an actor, it was about losing Chandler Bing and all the memories we had made attached to him, his character and the series. Similarly, One Direction fans didn't just lose Liam, they've now lost what feels like a piece of their past, their teenage years and the hope of future reunions

Starting point is 00:05:00 that will never happen now. It's a bit like when Take That first broke up in 1996. Fans were devastated and the reaction was so overwhelming that a helpline had to be set up for fans struggling to cope. And this was when nobody had died, they'd just split up and there could still have been a chance that they would one day reunite. There could well have been that hope with Liam Payne and with the 1D band but of course with Robbie Williams and the rest of Take That they perhaps needed that time apart to grow, to heal and to eventually reunite. Many One Direction fans might have been hoping for that same thing for the band but of course when a member dies that no longer

Starting point is 00:05:43 becomes possible and can lead to grief as a result of that. And that's a really tough thing to process. I want to break down a concept that might again feel or sound a bit scary and a bit big and that's the concept of disenfranchised grief. And if we were to kind of look at that together, it's one of the reasons why this kind of celebrity grief feels quite complicated actually. Because it's not always recognized or validated by others. So disenfranchised means it's unrecognized or dismissed by society or others. And the grief is the emotional response to that loss. So disenfranchised grief is what happens

Starting point is 00:06:26 when you are mourning or grieving, but people around you don't necessarily see it as a real grief. So for example, if you had lost a family member, a friend or a pet, most people would tend to offer you their condolences and their sympathy. They might check in on you and acknowledge your pain, ask how they can help. But when a celebrity dies, they might check in on you and acknowledge your pain, ask how they can

Starting point is 00:06:45 help. But when a celebrity dies, people might dismiss that grief and say things like, but you didn't even know them. It's not like they were part of your family. Or why are you so upset? This can make you feel like you shouldn't be grieving or that your emotions are somehow invalid or unwelcomed. The ugly truth about grief is that it isn't just about losing someone you knew personally, it's about losing that connection that mattered to you. And why might mental health professionals feel this grief in an intense way? Something I find really interesting is that even people who may not have been a One

Starting point is 00:07:26 Direction fan still might have felt really sad about Liam's death. Why could this be? I think being a mental health professional or just being a really empathetic human, we can really connect to and feel the weight of someone's struggles, perhaps their untapped potential or the tragedy of their circumstances. Often with mental health professionals I think it's also that sense of I really wish something, someone or maybe even I could have helped them. This makes me think about the same thing happening when Amy Winehouse died. People weren't just mourning her music, they were mourning the struggles that she went through and

Starting point is 00:08:02 the hope that she might one day overcome them. And the tragedy is that her life was cut short at the age of 27. For Liam Payne too, there's that sense of what if. What if he'd been able to get the support that it seems that he clearly needed? What if things had turned out differently? He'd got a chance to watch his little boy grow up. And what if he'd lived to make the changes, to continue his solo career and or heal enough to be able to reconnect with One Direction 2?

Starting point is 00:08:27 All of those what ifs, the jagged edges, what we call the yearning and the bargaining in grief can make it really hard to process and mean that it just doesn't lay flat. So how do you cope with celebrity or parasocial grief? If you are struggling with Lee and Payne's death or any other celebrity or public figure loss, here are a few things that might help. Acknowledge your feelings. Your grief is valid. You don't have to justify that to anyone. Talk about it. Share memories, discuss their impact and connect with others who understand too. You might like to channel it into something positive. Listen discuss their impact, and connect with others who understand too. Number three, you might like to channel it

Starting point is 00:09:07 into something positive. Listen to their music, donate to a cause they supported, or write about what it meant to you. Number four, it's the same for all grief. We need to be able to give yourself time. Grief doesn't have a set timeline, and it's okay to still feel emotional months later. A celebrity grief is real because as humans we have emotions and our brains

Starting point is 00:09:28 don't always differentiate between people we know and people we don't and that is the nature of the parasocial grief which can be so easily invalidated in others around you. We can even invalidate ourselves too. If you are struggling with grief or if you'd like to be able to understand how to support people who are grieving, please do check out the Grief Collective, stories of life loss and learning to heal. People tell me that it really helps them to understand themselves and to understand why people grieve, how they grieve and it includes 54 stories written by real people about their experiences with grief for a variety of reasons. Thank you for watching. If you found this content helpful I would love it if you would

Starting point is 00:10:18 subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. Drop a like, drop a comment, let's support one another in the comments, let me know why you're watching and what it has evoked for you. Please do consider sharing this episode with someone that you think might benefit from it. Please, obviously, if you do feel that you can't keep yourself safe and that life doesn't feel like it's worth living, please do reach out to your local mental health service or your local doctor. Grief might feel like it will never end but I promise it can be processed so that it lays flatter and so that life feels more worth living again in future. Hi, I'm Max, and I work as an Assistant Psychologist in the Learning Disability Service in West Yorkshire. Like most people working in psychology, I'm slowly but surely working myself up to

Starting point is 00:11:37 that seemingly impossible goal of getting onto the clinical doctorate. With that end goal in mind, I thought I'd have a look at what's out there and see what books might be helpful for us. I came across Marianne's book, The Clinical Psychologist Collective, and decided that this would be a great buy for me to help me on my journey. I found Marianne's book really informative, most insightful. I especially liked how the stories reassured me that you don't need to be academically perfect to become a psychologist and that as long as you have good interpersonal skills such as compassion and empathy, you will get there.

Starting point is 00:12:15 I would highly recommend this book to all aspiring psychologists and also those who want to know a bit more about the world of clinical psychology and maybe want to work in that field one day.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Why We Grieve Celebrities: The Psychology of Loss & Liam Payne

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