Whether we’ve suffered a break-up, bereavement or the loss of a job, many of us feel under pressure to put our pain behind us and ‘move on’. But does this mind-set actually do us more harm than good?

Less than six months after the breakdown of her 25-year marriage, Jane began to feel the pressure to move on. ‘When my husband first left, friends were fantastic – dropping round, cooking dinner and listening while I talked in circles,’ she says. ‘That lasted for the first month.’ Then the support dwindled. People weren’t around or available, and when they did meet, the conversation was steered in other directions. ‘If I talked about the divorce or my ex, I’d get a concerned look, as if I should be over it by now. Within six months, people were telling me to get out there again and setting me up with their friends.’

Though Jane, 51, was still reeling from the shock of having her life pulled from under her, she was made to feel ‘abnormal’, as if she should somehow be coping better with her distress. ‘So then I felt guilty and worried about that as well,’ she says. ‘I hid my feelings, and even went on a few dates – though I was far from ready. In company, I’d try to be the person everyone wanted to see. I remember a younger colleague squeezing my arm and telling me she was so inspired by how I’d “moved on” and “found closure”. I buried my impulse to laugh and tell her there’s no such thing.’

Closure is a relatively new notion; our grandparents didn’t seek ‘neat endings’ and ‘fresh starts’ when disaster struck. But now it’s all around us, bandied about by therapists, self-help gurus, police, campaigners, prosecutors and politicians. When we suffer a loss – of a loved one, a marriage, a home or a career – we’re led to expect there will be tough times ahead, but that, in the end, we’ll reach a place where there’s no pain, no sadness, no anger.

When settling the bitter divorce between Asos founder Nick Robertson and his wife Janine earlier this year, Mr Justice Holman commented that he hoped the couple could ‘move on’ with their lives. (Easy to say, but for Janine, whose husband left her after ten years of marriage and moved in with his former PA, perhaps rather harder to do.) The Durham police hoped the sentencing of footballer Adam Johnson would ‘bring some closure’ to the 15-year- old girl he was found guilty of having a sexual relationship with. Yet research shows there are no magic solutions for victims of abuse.

Numerous rituals have sprung up to hurry closure along. Former couples have divorce parties and separation ceremonies. And if a person who harmed you – whether that’s a parent, your ex-husband or your former boss – is unavailable to hear your pain, we’re told that writing it all out in a letter, then burning it, may help take you to that dream state where all ‘what ifs’ and ‘whys’ are magicked away.

Divorce, says Andrew G Marshall, marital therapist and author of Heal and Move On, is a huge event that brings a lot of emotion. ‘There can be rejection, abandonment, anger, betrayal,’ he says. ‘It can be as traumatic as bereavement. There are people for whom life is divided into two halves – before divorce and after divorce. You think you are going to be married to this man for ever; you build a life together. He leaves you, your children are hurting – and then you’re told to move on, that you’re not allowed to be angry any more.’

We’re becoming intolerant of normal messy human emotion. A divorcée is expected to be back out there and dating within six months – even though some people never feel ready to begin a new relationship. Marshall suggests waiting at least a year after things formally end (and then to go in with low expectations of a nice meal and some conversation – not a miracle new beginning).

‘Quite a few of my clients arrive saying they want closure,’ says Marshall. ‘The first time it was mentioned, I consulted my dictionary of psychological and psychoanalytical terms but found nothing. The idea that we can somehow deal with a past painful relationship, package it up and move on is so seductive that we have invented our own word. I can promise you there’s no such thing.’

According to American sociologist Nancy Berns, the concept of closure only became popular in the 1990s, having sprung from various places – the self-help movement, pop psychology, the funeral industry and death-penalty campaigners, all of whom seized on the idea for their own ends. ‘It’s a made-up concept, unrelated to any psychological process,’ she says. ‘Emotions don’t work like that. You don’t wrap up your pain and put everything behind you.’

Berns is the author of Closure: the Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us. She experienced this ‘rush’ when her son was stillborn in 2001. As the months passed, the circle of

Closure is a new notion: our grandparents didn’t seek neat endings when disaster struck