A Narrative Analysis of Sibling Grief

Sibling grief is linked to serious physical and mental health outcomes, yet remains the least researched of all family bereavement. This exploratory study created a shared sibling grief narrative. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 27 participants who lost a sibling. Primary themes included Shared Life: Identity Within the Sibling Arrangement; Sibling Death: Pivotal Moments in Time; Life After Sibling Loss: Emotional Suffering, Life After Sibling Loss: Missing Roles & Changing Relationships; and The Sibling Lives On. The following study findings clarify the overlooked impact that sibling death has on the surviving sibling and demonstrate the crucial need for more sibling loss research.     

Predicting Grief Symptomatology among the Suddenly Bereaved

Social scientists have long been interested in the study of grief and bereavement, but only recently has research focused on the aftereffects of sudden loss. Theory and research alike suggest that grief is multidimensional and that specific grief reactions have a unique set of predictors. The purpose of this study is to examine the relative contribution of risk factors in explaining variations in specific grief reactions following a sudden death. Data for this study come from medical examiners' reports and mail-back surveys of survivors of sudden loss from suicide or accident. The results indicate that several characteristics of the survivor, mode of death, and social support are important determinants of grief symptomatology. This research concludes by directing future theoretical and empirical endeavors to examine more fully the role of relational factors in influencing grief experiences following bereavement.     

中国丧亲个体社会支持体验的质性研究

本研究通过对28位丧亲者进行深度访谈,使用解释现象学分析法对质性数据进行分析,探索中国丧亲个体的社会支持体验。结果显示,丧亲社会支持的内容包括后事处理、情感支持、生活恢复帮助,经济与物资支持等。支持来源除家人和朋友之外,还包括同事、相同经历者,以及相关机构等。社会支持通过调节情绪、改变认知等方式促进个体对丧亲的适应。本研究结果为最新丧亲社会支持模型提供了支持,同时也反映出中国社会对丧亲人群的社会支持特色。     

Neither Bereavement nor Grief: Coping with the Death of a Cherished Person in the Cunda-sutta

Though bereavement and grief have been common human experience throughout recorded history, how bereavement is viewed and grief coped with varies from one philosophical tradition to another. By examining features running throughout the Cunda-sutta, this paper demonstrates a shift from the ordinary conception of bereavement to an insightful understanding of not-bereavement. If one possesses insight into how worldly convention shapes ordinary conceptions of bereavement, then one need not associate bereavement with loss and grief. For ordinary people, grief may be regarded as a natural response to loss. However, in light of the emptiness of bereavement, the emphasis can be shifted from coping with grief to the understanding of not-grief and to the cultivation of mental abilities conducive to moving forward on the right path. By examining the reasoning of neither bereavement nor grief, this paper sheds new light on a rarely acknowledged perspective on coping with the death of a cherished person.     

‘The bereaved therapist speaks’. An interpretative phenomenological analysis of humanistic therapists' experiences of a significant personal bereavement and its impact upon their therapeutic practice: An exploratory study

Aim: The aim of the research was to explore the under‐researched area of therapists' personal bereavement and its impact upon their therapeutic practice. Method: Data were collected via semi‐structured interviews with four humanistic therapists and were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Findings: Four master and eight subordinate themes emerged from the rich data collected that exemplified both convergence with and divergence from the small body of extant literature on therapist bereavement and current thinking in thanatology. The findings suggest that bereavement is a unique experience that can affect the individual's personal and social identity and worldview. It can also be a transformative experience resulting in personal growth and a renewed sense of self and agency. In terms of professional practice, the findings suggest that the lived experience of the grieving process, mediated by supportive supervision, enabled participants to experience deeper levels of empathy and connectedness within their therapeutic relationships. Conclusion and implications: Bereavement is an experience that can profoundly impact upon therapists' personal identity and assumptive world. Such an experience can have an equally profound impact upon their therapeutic practice. There are therefore implications for students, trainers, therapists and supervisors particularly in terms of self‐care and the use of the ‘self’ in therapy. Further research needs to be undertaken in order to explore in greater depth the intersection between personal bereavement and therapists' evolving personal and professional identity development.     

Resilience to loss and chronic grief: a prospective study from preloss to 18-months postloss

The vast majority of bereavement research is conducted after a loss has occurred. Thus, knowledge of the divergent trajectories of grieving or their antecedent predictors is lacking. This study gathered prospective data on 205 individuals several years prior to the death of their spouse and at 6- and 18-months postloss. Five core bereavement patterns were identified: common grief, chronic grief, chronic depression, improvement during bereavement, and resilience. Common grief was relatively infrequent, and the resilient pattern most frequent. The authors tested key hypotheses in the literature pertaining to chronic grief and resilience by identifying the preloss predictors of each pattern. Chronic grief was associated with preloss dependency and resilience with preloss acceptance of death and belief in a just world.     

Phone follow up to families of COVID-19 patients who died at the hospital: families' grief reactions and clinical psychologists' roles

A proportion of persons affected by coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) die and do so in extraordinary circumstances. This can make grief management extremely challenging for families. The Clinical Psychology unit of an Italian hospital offered a bereavement follow-up call to such families. This study aimed to explore the families' experiences and needs collected during these calls, and the role that the psychologists played through the call. A total of 246 families were called over 3 months. Multiple qualitative methods included: (i) written reports of the calls with relatives of patients who died at the hospital for COVID-19; (ii) qualitative semi-structured interviews with psychologists involved in the calls; (iii) observation of psychologists' peer group discussions. A thematic analysis was conducted. Six themes emerged: without death rituals, solitary, unexpected, unfair, unsafe, coexisting with other stressors. Families' reactions were perceived by psychologists as close to a traumatic grief. Families' needs ranged from finding alternative rituals to giving meaning and expressing different emotions. The psychologists played both a social-institutional and a psychological-human role through the calls (e.g., they cured disrupted communication or validated feelings and choices). This study highlighted the potential of traumatic grief of families of COVID-19 victims, and provided indications for supporting them within the space of a short phone call.     

Bereavement anxieties and health amongst the Australian-Italian Catholic community

This article is based on survey of 269 households in the state of Victoria, Australia. It elicits some useful guidelines for professional caregivers in relation to eight cultural/religious groups including Australian-born Christians and Arab-born Muslims. The focus here is upon the relationships between the Australian Italian community and personal health outcomes during bereavement. The following sub-strata are examined: community differences in relation to grief and loss practices and traditions; the value of religious communal support and counseling; symptomatological differences from psychosocial and educational perspectives; psychopathological/psychiatric symptoms and beliefs and practice concerning the afterlife. Significant differences were revealed between the sexes on such matters as health problems, grief expressions, psychosomatic manifestations, communication with the dead, beliefs in the afterlife and interpretation of the meaning of loss. Differences in these findings will assist professional caregivers who deal with families experiencing personal death loss to broaden their own perspectives on bereavement, offering specific counselling strategies and care-giving interventions.     

Development and Preliminary Evaluation of a Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for Perinatal Grief

Perinatal loss, typically defined as fetal death beyond 20 weeks gestation through infant death 1-month postpartum, is a potentially traumatizing experience for parents occurring in approximately 1% of births in the United States. Although many women recover, 15% to 25% have enduring grief-related symptomatology and functional impairment. Perinatal grief is a unique bereavement experience, but clinical resources for detecting and treating severe perinatal grief are rare and interventions are largely without empirical support. We developed and pilot tested a cognitive-behavioral intervention targeting the psychological and behavioral sequelae of perinatal bereavement. To initially evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of the intervention, 5 women who suffered a perinatal loss were randomized to a 2-week, 4-week, or 6-week baseline period in a multiple-baseline single-case experimental design. In most cases, after the respective baseline periods, there was a steady decline in reported grief symptoms. These gains were largely maintained at a 6-week follow-up assessment. This study provides initial evidence in support of future research and clinical efforts tailoring cognitive behavioral interventions to meet the specific needs of women who experience perinatal loss.     

A short-term grief and loss therapy group: Group members' experiences

Abstract

This article is an evaluative study of a short-term grief and loss therapy group conducted at a large Midwestern university's counseling center. The group was held for students who had experienced loss through death of a significant person. The author examines brief group psychotherapy, special considerations of the college student's grief experience, an adaptation of the brief group model for grieving students, and data gathered from the members of the therapy group. Students' scores on a grief instrument showed mixed results. Group members made journal entries at four times during the group experience. They reported that the group was a supportive and helpful experience; five of Yalom's (1995) eleven therapeutic factors could be discerned. Recommendations regarding the treatment of grieving students in a group setting are made.     

Conceptualizing an HIV Diagnosis Through a Model of Grief and Bereavement

For people living with HIV/AIDS, grief and bereavement typically refer to the loss of life felt in the HIV community. However, changes in HIV treatments allow care providers to view HIV grief in a way that considers physical, social, and emotional loss, as well as a loss of the life they had previously pictured for themselves. Kübler‐Ross's ( 1969 ) model of bereavement is presented as a way to conceptualize clients living with HIV who are dealing with grief and bereavement. In addition, popular bereavement counseling approaches relevant to clients with HIV are discussed, and a case illustration is provided.     

Forced Retirement From Elite Football In Australia

Abstract

Retirement from sport poses a major socioemotional threat to elite athletes. The present study builds on a growing body of literature examining the vacuum created in an athlete's life after retirement. Grounded theory was used to construct how elite football players dealt with forced retirement owing to injury and deselection. Recursive in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 recently retired players who had competed at the highest level in Australian Rules football. The data were characterized by a rich array of personal reflections of loss and grief that reflected four themes: loss of identity, perceived control, financial issues, and social support. Interviewees typically told stories that were tinged with shock, regret, bitterness, distress, and perceived loss of status.     

Youth Mental Illness and the Family: Parents’ Loss and Grief

Parents and family members whose adult child or relative has a mental illness endure significant losses, to which they respond with grief. Such grief may negatively affect family members’ physical and psychological health and also the relationship with their relative. Yet, research in this field is sparse. Very few studies have examined parents’ loss and grief in the context of the patient being a child or teen. It is not clear the extent to which parents’ loss and grief in response to their child or adolescent’s mental illness is similar or different to the accounts of older parents and family members caring for an adult relative with major psychopathology (e.g., Schizophrenia, Bipolar disorder). Parental loss and grief is not often addressed in child and adolescent mental health services’ provision of care; alarmingly, little is known about how best to support parents who access these services. The present study aimed to bridge this knowledge gap and identify the therapeutic needs of this younger parent population. Comprehensive interviews were conducted with 14 parents and one custodial grandparent of a youth aged 18 years or younger who was currently attending a child and adolescent mental health service. An inductive thematic analysis identified six themes; parents’ narrative of finding out, profound and pervasive loss, complex grief, waning support, the challenges of caregiving and a call for assistance. It can be inferred from these results that youth mental illness can constitute a source of loss and grief for parents. Participants’ loss and grief was largely consistent with the experience of families caring for an adult relative with major psychopathology. Opportunities for mental health practitioners to support families’ loss and grief were identified. Further studies are needed to enhance understanding of this complex and, to a large extent, ignored familial experience. Results do underscore the importance of clinicians acknowledging parents’ loss and grief and working directly with this experience over the course of youths’ treatment, perhaps in conjunction with family psychoeducation approaches.     

Constructions of Mexican American family grief after the death of a child: an exploratory study

Using a collective case study ethnographic approach, nine individuals comprising three Mexican American families were interviewed about their family bereavement experiences after the death of a child. All families were Catholic, had surviving siblings, and had had three or more years to grieve their loss when interviewed. The deceased children ranged in age from 3 to 14, and all experienced sudden, traumatic, nonsuicide deaths. To provide a broader, contextual picture of their grief experiences, four individuals who supported these family members after the loss were also interviewed. Unique grief experiences were identified, and eight common themes emerged, reflecting the ways in which family members maintained their bond to the deceased: dreams, storytelling, keepsakes, sense of presence, faith-based connections, proximity connections, ongoing rituals, and pictorial remembrances. The cultural implications of family bereavement are highlighted.     

Between the idea and the reality: A study of the counselling experiences of bereaved people who sense the presence of the deceased

There have been many theories of the process of loss and bereavement, from Freud, to the present day. Early theories of bereavement described a process which, following various stages and associated tasks, ended at the relinquishment of the bond to the deceased. In more recent years theories have taken different directions, identifying how bereaved people re‐learn life, recreate biographies, and continue relationships to the deceased. Some research studies of bereavement have investigated the counsellors’ perspective, but there are very few studies of the client's experience and most studies have focussed on outcomes of counselling. This qualitative study, using semi‐structured interviews, provides an insight into the bereaved client's perspective on the content and process of their counselling experiences. Taking as its focus the client's sense of the presence of the deceased, this study aimed to identify whether or how counsellors facilitate exploration of this experience and which theories they use in client work. The main finding is that 80% of the counsellors were not perceived by participants to have worked with them satisfactorily in relation to their sense of presence of the deceased or in relation to the story of the death itself.     

A Matter of Life and Death: Understanding Continuing Bonds and Post-traumatic Growth When Young Adults Experience the Loss of a Close Friend

Young adults establish networks of friends for companionship, support, assistance, and resource exchange. Friends have been found to play an essential role in promoting young adults’ health and well-being. Yet, relatively little is known about how young adults cope with the death of a close friend. Studies of grief and bereavement in adulthood focus primarily on the death of a family member. In the present qualitative study, we examined the narrative accounts of 20 young adults (ages 21–34) to describe the prevalence and nature of continuing bonds and post-traumatic growth experiences in coping with the death of a close friend. Participants completed semi-structured interviews in which they described the circumstances of their friend’s death, the nature of their friendship, whether and how they continued their relationship with their deceased friend, and the impact of their friend’s death in their everyday lives. Overall, young adults articulated ways that they continued their relationship with the deceased friend that included personal communication, personal change, and homage activities. Post-traumatic growth experiences as a result of their friend’s death included behavioral changes and personal changes in outlook. The narratives of all participants reflected their simultaneous experience of continuing relationship ties with the deceased and a sense of personal growth as a result of their friend’s death. We report areas of overlap and distinctions between expressions of continuing bonds and post-traumatic growth in the lived experience of young adults coping with the loss of a friend. Implications of findings for future research are discussed.     

Mothers continuing bonds and ambivalence to personal mortality after the death of their child--an interpretative phenomenological analysis

The main objective of this study was to identify how bereaved mothers describe their coping strategies in their own words. The literature on parental bereavement is sparse, and the present study aims to add to existing knowledge by eliciting the mothers' experiences covering a wide range of child ages including infants, younger children and adults. Semi-structured interviews were held with 13 bereaved mothers in the UK. Causes of death include accident, illness and suicide. The methodological approach was interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). This article reports two inter-related recurrent themes: (1) Continuing the bond with the deceased child and (2) Ambivalence to personal mortality. Participants reported that the relationship with their child was continued in a variety of ways, from tending to the grave and the child's remains, through linking objects or by establishing a symbolic representation of the child within their daily lives. All mothers talked openly about their own mortality, either demonstrating ambivalence about their own death, or expressing clear suicidal ideation. Death was seen as a release from living with the pain of loss. The presence of surviving siblings appeared to moderate suicidal ideation, but mothers expressed concerns about their ability to care adequately for other family members during times of intense grief.     

Religious Doubt and Spiritual Growth Among Adults Bereaved of a Grandparent

Religious beliefs and bereavement provide contexts for personal growth (Benore & Park, 2004). The death of a grandparent may be especially well-suited to prompt such growth. Using data from 164 adults, ages 18 to 51 years, bereaved of a grandparent, the authors examined whether religious doubt relates to current grief via perceived spiritual growth. Mediation analyses showed that fewer religious doubts were associated with spiritual growth in bereavement, but spiritual growth was associated with higher levels of current grief. Results are discussed within a framework for including family processes in bereavement research that includes religious doubt and spiritual growth.