AS DINÂMICAS AFETIVO-SEMIÓTICAS NA EXPERIÊNCIA DE LUTO PELA MORTE DE PESSOAS VITIMADAS PELA COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought thousands of people into mourning around the world. In Brazil, we have lost approximately 700,000 people due to death from the COVID-19 virus, with an average of seven people grieving for each death. These alarming numbers indicate the need to provide adequate and effective mental health care for this segment of the population. Given this scenario, considered a catastrophe and collective trauma, this research sought to understand the affective-semiotic dynamics involved in the grieving process of people who lost family members during the pandemic, during the most critical period (from 2020 to 2021). Narrative interviews were conducted remotely with three female participants from different regions of Brazil, totaling two meetings with each participant. The study used a qualitative, idiographic, and microgenetic approach to understand the micromechanisms involved in this grieving process. Based on Semiotic Cultural Psychology, two constructs were explored in depth: the Affective-Semiotic Field and the Shadow Trajectory of the bereaved. The results found that grief is an affective-semiotic field that expands and retracts in its affects, which at times encompasses the entirety of a person's life, while at other times becomes confined to a specific time and space in their history. The shadow trajectory was understood as the experiential dimension of grief, representing the continued bonds with the deceased family member, symbolically, even in the face of their concrete absence. The results also indicate that grief resulting from deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic has some particularities, such as the sudden loss of multiple people simultaneously or in a short period of time, the rupture of the bereaved's assumed world, giving way to the belief of a threatening world, and the emergence of an affective-semiotic field of "pandemic fear," heightened during the period of deaths. Therefore, this grief has the potential to become traumatic grief. However, the support network acts as a mitigating factor, aiming to minimize the damage of the traumatic dimension, especially when the affective-semiotic field of grief is organized through words, making its expression possible through the externalization of meanings in interpersonal relationships. This allows the experience of grief, when met with an interlocutor, to receive recognition and validation, thereby contributing to a healthy grieving process. The results also indicate a possible post-traumatic growth of the bereaved, which is made possible through a support network. This research represents advances in the field of grief studies. However, it has some limitations, indicating the need for a broader range of participants in future studies, including those related to social determinants such as race, gender, and socioeconomic class. The results obtained hope to contribute to expanding knowledge about the grieving process in a traumatic context, as well as to developing effective interventions in the mental health care of the bereaved.