Seventy-four mourners were studied on how their experiences with funeral services for their loved ones influenced later scores on the Grief Experience Inventory (GEI). Those who found the funeral "comforting" and/or participated in planning the funeral reported less grief misery later. A high incidence (43%) of "adverse events" was found to occur during the funerals, contributing, for some mourners, to a perception of the funeral as "not comforting." Adverse events are categorized and illustrated by the authors to aid grief therapists and funeral directors in assisting mourners to be vigilant toward such adversities and to optimize the healing potential of funeral rituals.Centuries of conventional wisdom suggest that bereaved individuals benefit from attending funeral services or similar rites of passage when a loved one dies. Besides the burial or disposition of human remains, Fulton (1995) has argued that funerals serve important psychological functions of separation and integration. Separation functions are those which acknowledge that death has occurred and that the deceased OMEGA, Vol. 41(2) 79-92, 2000 79

Examines the empirical relationships among spiritual experience, church attendance, and bereavement adjustment in a sample (N = 85) of individuals grieving the death of a significant person in their lives. Results indicate that those participants evidencing high levels of spiritual experience showed lower levels of problematic grief affect. Notes that church attendance appeared to influence grief adjustment only to the extent that it was positively correlated with spiritual experience. Discusses implications for pastoral caregiving.

No abstract