About today’s guest, Isabella Cheremeteff: She is currently studying to get her Master's degree in Forensic Psychology at George Washington University and interning with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Psychology at Skidmore College in 2020, with her senior thesis focused on the significance of the corpse to the grief and bereavement process. She’s extremely passionate about deconstructing the social taboos around death, dying, and grief, and hopes to continue her career in helping families and loved ones suffering from ambiguous loss in situations where there is no body to bury or recover (such as natural disasters, abductions, large-scale terrorist attacks, etc.)

Follow her on IG here: @iz_thisthingon

On today’s episode, Isabella and I discuss:

· Her thesis, which aimed to answer the question: why do humans care about what happens to the bodies of their loved ones?

· The funeral business in America, and how capitalism has shaped how we grieve

· The shift of how we interact with our loved ones’ dead bodies in the last 100 years

· How certain animals interact with their loved ones’ dead bodies

· How averse our culture is to death and dying

· Ambiguous loss when the body cannot be recovered or found, and how that affects the grief

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