Photo viewing after traumatic death: Finding the missing piece.

Abstract

All too often, the needs of bereaved relatives are not met because they are advised to not look at the bodies of their loved ones who died a traumatic death. Because their needs are unmet, bereaved relatives often experience secondary victimization, which is an unnecessary additional pain. Therefore, after losing their loved ones to traffic or aircraft accidents, homicides, suicides, or mass disasters (such as terror attacks, tsunami, and earthquakes), bereaved relatives often struggle with many unanswered questions, for example, I did not see him/her with my own eyes, so is it really true my loved one died? Where and how was my loved one found? Did he or she suffer? How did my loved one look like? These questions are posed to professionals who in turn ask themselves, would it be helpful or not helpful for these bereaved relatives to be shown pictures of the dead body of their loved ones? Can "photo viewing" (PV) fulfill the unfulfilled needs of these bereaved relatives? First, we describe different forms of secondary victimization when bereaved relatives are denied their wish to see their deceased loved one. Then, principles underlying PV and the step-by-step PV approach will be described in a checklist format, followed by a classification of bereavement needs after a traumatic death. It was concluded that if PV is carefully carried out with informed consent, it fulfills a variety of needs of bereaved people in traumatic death cases. There is evidence that although in the short term, PV causes unavoidable pain to bereaved relatives, in the long term, it makes them feel less distressed.