Telling It Like It Is: The Adaptive Function of Narratives in Coping With Loss in Later Life

Abstract

As the population ages, caregivers and health care providers need more insight into how people experience old age and their attitudes and emotions about growing older. It is particularly critical to understand how communication processes change and how older adults communicate their concerns and feelings. This article proposes that some discursive activities may play a crucial role in successfully adapting to, and coping with, loss in later life. Thus, this study explored how older adults reflect on and express themselves concerning recent experiences of loss. A sample of 41 residents of 2 independent-living retirement communities wrote in journals about a recent significant loss. Participants wrote about their losses during brief lab sessions over the course of 3 consecutive days. Each set of 3 journals was content-analyzed to measure the frequency with which the participants employed emotional expression, factual recounting, account giving, religious-account giving, humor, intensifiers, and referential statements. The analysis indicates that, overall, participants shifted from a primarily factual mode (what the loss was, how the loss occurred, etc.) to more of a focus on the impact of this loss on their lives (e.g., handling new tasks and expressions of emotions) over the 3 sessions. In addition, most participants offered accounts of their losses; that is, they attempted to find some meaning in the loss and integrate the loss into an overall framework for their lives. Many of these accounts focused on religion. Final sections of the article discuss the implications of journaling as a mechanism for effective coping with loss, as a useful tool for expressing emotions, and as a means for older adults' caregivers and health care providers to better adapt their supportive messages.

Grieving Those We've Lost: An Examination of Family Communication Patterns and Grief Reactions

“…Individuals who openly share their grief with others are likely to be changed in positive ways (Lattanzi & Hale, 1984-1985, thus experiencing the grief reaction of personal growth. Further, highly communicative families also tend to report high self-esteem, low stress, and improved communication skills (Koesten, 2004;Schrodt et al, 2007), all of which contribute to the likelihood of positive grief reactions (Caplan et al, 2005). Thus, our results indicate that families who encourage open and honest communication are likely to experience feelings of personal growth after a death of a family member.…”

“…Previous research suggests communication can affect the bereavement process both positively (Betz & Thorngren, 2006;Caplan et al, 2005;Gilbert, 1989;Silverman & Silverman, 1979) and negatively (Banks & Pearson, 2004;Mallinger, Griggs, & Shields, 2007). These negative reactions may be more prevalent in individuals who have recently lost a loved one or if the death of the loved one was unexpected.…”

“…Because of the difficulty of such situations, individuals frequently need to talk about their feelings and their grief (Betz & Thorngren, 2006). Reminiscing and emotional expression are effective communicative coping tools following a death (Caplan, Haslett, & Burleson, 2005). Both parents who have lost a child (Gilbert, 1989) and widowed individuals (Silverman & Silverman, 1979) cope with the death more easily if they are able to make sense of it through communicating with others.…”

Though Much Is Taken, Much Abides: The Storied World of Aging in a Fictionalized Retirement Home

“…Retirement communities, assisted-living facilities, and nursing homes, in particular, can foster narrative environments by facilitating reminiscing, storytelling circles, and journaling workshops for residents to make sense of their lived experiences. One innovative study, for example, explored how residents of retirement communities cope with loss, adapt to their new reality, and express their emotions through journaling (Caplan, Haslett, & Burleson, 2005). Their stories could then inform supportive communicative practices within the facilities and between residents and their families.…”

In the wake of the Wenchuan earthquake: the function of story-sharing in rebuilding communities in the quake disaster zone

“…However, they had also come to reappraise the experiences in a way that enabled them to attain a sense of peace about the losses. Caplan, Haslett, and Burleson's (2005) posited that reappraisal is the central cognitive mechanism for coping with emotional distress. To quake survivors, this process involved an integration process by which they adapted to the loss and integrated it into an overall life perspective.…”