Unrecognized grieving: challenges and contributions of the psychologist in the process of coping with death

Abstract

With the progress of medicine and technologies in the health area, finitude started to occur in hospital complexes, thereby, making the grieving institutionalized. The psychologist who has in his work routine the counseling of critically ill patients and their relatives needs to have academic preparation and psychic resources in his training. Understand the role of the psychologist in coping with patients who experience the grieving processes and characterize the sociodemographic profile of these professionals were the goals of the present. Qualitative, descriptive, cross-sectional research. Data were collected through interviews and a sociodemographic questionnaire. Descriptive and phenomenological modality analysis. Six psychologists, average age of 32.6 years, 50% of spiritual religion, 83.3% single, satisfied with their workand 66.7% were not currently undergoing psychological counseling. Among the categories of meaning, we highlight the aspect of the importance of working with families and also the professional's emotional issues, the unrecognized grieving. The main limitations of psychological performance go beyond the recognition of professionals by the teams, and training deficiency, seen the curricula do not include specific material for coping with death.