And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, 0 my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, 0 Absalom, my son, my son! -2 Samuel 18:33The impetus for living things to reproduce and create offspring who survive them is so basic to life that it is one of the fundamental truths of our world, like gravity or the sun. Through it, continuity and a kind of immortality are achieved. The human impetus to reproduce and create offspring embraces both the biological and the symbolical. People both create life and give meaning to that life as part of existence and selfpreservation (Neimeyer, Keese, & Fortner, 2000). When one's child dies, however, a significant portion of the parent's life energy can effectively die with that child. This can have negative results for the individual, the family, and the community (Rubin, 1993
The Two-Track Model of Bereavement Questionnaire (TTBQ) was designed to assess response to loss over time. Respondents were 354 persons who completed the 70-item self-report questionnaire constructed in accordance with the Two-Track Model of Bereavement. Track I focuses on the bereaved's biopsychosocial functioning and Track II concerns the bereaved's ongoing relationship to the range of memories, images, thoughts, and feeling states associated with the deceased. Factor analysis identified 5 factors that accounted for 51% of the variance explained. In accord with the theoretical and clinical model, 3 factors were primarily associated with the relationship to the deceased (Track II): Active Relational Grieving, Close and Positive Relationship, and Conflictual Relationship; and 2 factors with aspects of functioning (Track I): General Biopsychosocial Functioning and Traumatic Perception of the Loss. Construct and concurrent validity were examined and were found satisfactory. Differences by kinship, cause of death, gender, and time elapsed were examined across the 5 factors, the total TTBQ, and the ITG. The new measure is shown to have both construct and concurrent validity. Discussions of the results and implications for the measurement of response to loss conclude the article.
This study is based upon personal interviews with 47 elderly bereaved parents. These interviews provided us with detailed and extensive information on the bereavement processes that parents experience over a long period of years. From an in-depth content analysis of the interviews and the way the parents described bereavement, it seems that it is a central motif in their lives affecting their relationships with each other, with the living children, with friends, at work and with others. Although enduring grief along the life cycle is an un-patterned process with emotional and cognitive ups and downs, involving a continuous search for a meaning to life, we observed a development in this process throughout the years. As we proposed in a previous study (Malkinson & Bar-Tur, 2000) there are three main identifiable phases in the bereavement process: the immediate, acute phase; grief through the years until aging; and bereavement in old age. We propose to refer to them as the three main phases in the development of parental grieving process and name them “young grief,” “mature grief,” and “aging grief.”
The death of a significant loved one is a painful but inevitable fact of life. On the basis of clinical and research literature, the inclusion of a complicated grief (CG) category in diagnostic nomenclatures has much to recommend it, yet, as we try to show in this chapter, a significant gap separates the clinical spectrum of complications of bereavement from current proposals advanced to conform to the requirements of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders {DSM; e.g., 4th ed., DSM-/V; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). We favor a diagnostic spectrum addressing bereavement in the DSM. Nevertheless, we question whether the emphasis placed on identifying individuals who are suffering from particularly pronounced complications of bereavement may not exclude too many cases of bereavement complication in some cases while being overinclusive in others. Furthermore, although we support the identification of bereavement complications among the population of people who have lost significant loved ones, we remain acutely aware that these developments can be accompanied by a variety of potentially negative implications whose impact cannot be fully perceived at this time. Because grief is a ubiquitous expetience, and because all humankind encounters loss and experiences grief and mourning, identifying some degrees and areas of grief as problematic with a medical diagnosis will almost certainly generate 187
This article reviews outcome studies of grief therapy, with special attention to the cognitive perspective. Based on those studies, three observations on bereavement interventions are offered: (a) development of psychotherapy interventions has been strongly linked to theoretical conceptualizations and definitions of what constitutes normal, pathological, and chronic grief at different times after bereavement; (b) in most reported studies, generic non-bereavement scales were applied for measuring reduction of symptoms. By using such measures, a link between a decrease in symptoms and “recovery” following treatment may be suggested, while neglecting to assess the bereaved’s worldview using grief-specific measures; (c) in reviewed outcome studies, behavioral (desensitization, social reinforcement) and cognitive-behavioral (exposure, guided mourning) interventions are included among effective treatment modalities in cases of complicated grief. It is observed that although similar interventions have been applied, theoretical adherence has changed, implying a change not in the intervention itself but rather in the expected outcome.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.