Yorick Spiegel

Yorick Spiegel (born April 13, 1935 in Düsseldorf , † September 23, 2010 in Langen ) was a German Protestant theologian.

Life

Spiegel studied Protestant theology at the University of Hamburg and at the Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin-Zehlendorf , where he worked from 1961 to 1968 as an assistant to Martin Fischer and in 1968 he was awarded a Dr. theol. received his doctorate. Then he was parish priest in Rheinhausen and Essen and completed his habilitation in 1972 at the Ruhr University in Bochum . From 1974 until his retirement in 1998 he was professor of systematic theology (social ethics) at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main .

His habilitation thesis The process of mourning. Analysis and Advice from 1972 was published in 1973 under the same title. In it, he describes grief in people who have lost a close relative in a phase model with four phases.

He represented a very human, more practical theology that was able to integrate psychoanalytic and political church criticism into the teaching of church and pastoral action.

Spiegel was a member of the German Paul Tillich Society. He died on September 23, 2010 and was buried on September 29, 2010 in Dreieich .

The four stages of grief according to Spiegel

Shock phase

The news of the death of a loved one initially leads to a feeling of numbness and shock. The mourner does not want to accept death and is incapable of any emotion. This phase usually lasts a few hours, a maximum of one to two days.

Controlled phase

The tasks associated with preparing for the funeral are very busy for the mourner. This is very welcome, because it distracts from one's own feelings, which are held back by all means so as not to suffer a breakdown. Mourners often perceive this phase as if they were bystanders in a film that was passing them by.

Regression phase

After the funeral and the departure of the relatives, the mourner is largely left to fend for himself. There is little interest in “external” life, what is important now is the processing of what has been experienced. The mourner often creates an ideal image of the deceased and initially ignores negative experiences. This increases the grief and the experience of loss even more. Gradually, however, it is possible to allow the less beautiful parts of the memory to be restored.

Adjustment phase

Usually only after several months is the mourner able to turn to his environment again. Despite relapses in sadness and fear, he is now able to enter into new relationships that go beyond replacing the loss suffered. Usually this phase is completed after about a year.

Fonts

• Theology of civil society. Social philosophy and doctrine of faith with Friedrich Schleiermacher . Kaiser, Munich 1968 (dissertation 1967 Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin).
• Church as a bureaucratic institution (= theological existence today 160). Kaiser, Munich 1969.
• Pastor without a local parish . Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Munich / Grünewald, Mainz 1970.
• The pastor in office . Kaiser, Munich 1970.
• The process of mourning. Analysis and advice. Kaiser, Munich 1973; also Gütersloh 1973, ISBN 3-579-05060-5 .
• together with Joachim Scharfenberg : Introduction to: Theodor Reik : Dogma and obsessional idea. 1927 . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1973.
• Publication of: Church and class ties. Studies on the situation of the churches in the Federal Republic of Germany . Frankfurt a. M. 1974
• Believe how he lives and how he lives , 3 volumes. Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1984
• Business Ethics and Business Practice. A growing contradiction? Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-17-011732-7 .
• together with Peter Kutter: Kreuzwege. Theological and psychoanalytic approaches to the Passion of Jesus . Kohlhammer 1997

literature

• Ilona Nord (Ed.): On the edges. Theological learning processes with Yorick Spiegel. Festschrift for the 70th birthday . LIT, Münster 2005.
• Ilona Nord, Joachim von Soosten : “The story is open”. Farewell to Yorick Spiegel . In: Dialog No. 50/51, 2010 , pp. 18f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ FAZ, October 2, 2010, p. 38.

Web links

• Literature by and about Yorick Spiegel in the catalog of the German National Library