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Concepts and Foundation 1. Grief in the stricter sense is a universally human, psychophysical reaction—a painful feeling of separation and loss, coupled with specific bodily stimulation (weeping, wailing). In the broader sense, it includes complex social reactions—including, especially, ritual forms—and actions specific to each culture, vis-à-vis social or physical death. This twofold meaning is readily perceived in the English expression ‘bereavement.’ Generally, the word denotes the reaction to the real or symbolic loss of a meaningful object. But tw…

Conception and Foundation 1. Although feelings are once more in vogue, and psychologists currently even speak of an ‘emotional turn’ (Euler/Mandl 1983), scientific research into feelings and emotions is still in its infancy. This state of affairs can be seen in the fact that the concept of emotions is accompanied by considerable imprecision. And so the word ‘feeling’ in psychological parlance is best understood in an enumeration of particular sensations. Feelings are experiences such as joy, hatred…

[German Version] Revulsion is a feeling of dislike coupled with repugnance. Its object may be food (e.g. pork among observant Muslims and Jews or horse meat among Christians), objects, persons (e.g. members of other religious communities or menstruating women [Lev 12:2–8; 15:19–28]), bodily parts (e.g. the genitals or, among Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists, the “unclean left hand” [Pure and impure], which must not touch sacred objects), but also types of behavior (e.g. spitting or vomiting, which m…