Bereavement And Coping Among College Students

The Two-Track Model of Bereavement is a model that states loss is conceptualized along two axes. Track I pertains to the biopsychosocial functioning in the event of a loss and Track II pertains to the bereaved’s continued emotional attachment and relationship to whoever is deceased. The effect of Track I is seen through the bereaved’s functioning, including their anxiety, their self-esteem and self-worth, and their depressive affect and cognitions. Noting the ability of one to invest in life tasks after experiencing a loss indicates how they are responding to the loss of the deceased. This Track is seen as an expression similar to one of trauma, or crisis. Track II holds that the bereaved has difficulty physically separating from the deceased. This can be seen in emotional, interpersonal, or cognitive ways. It is shown through imagery and memories that the bereaved experiences surrounding the deceased, whether positive or negative, as well as the emotional distance from them. These pictures in the bereaved’s head explain both the cognitive and emotional view of the person who has died (Rubin, 1999).

The life transition of death and dying is inevitably one with which we will all be faced; we will all experience the death of people we hold close throughout our lifetime. This paper will explore the different processes of grief including the bereavement, mourning, and sorrow individuals go through after losing someone to death. Bereavement is a period of adaptation following a life changing loss. This period encompasses mourning, which includes behaviors and rituals following a death, and the wide range of emotions that go with it. Sorrow is the state of ongoing sadness not overcome in the grieving process; though not pathological, persistent

Loss is a phenomenon that is experienced by all. Death is experienced by family members as a unique and elevated form of loss which is modulated by potent stages of grief. Inevitably, everyone will lose someone with whom they had a personal relationship and emotional connection and thus experience an aftermath that can generally be described as grief. Although bereavement, which is defined as a state of sorrow over the death or departure of a loved one, is a universal experience it varies widely across gender, age, and circumstance (definitions.net, 2015). Indeed the formalities and phases associated with bereavement have been recounted and theorized in literature for years. These philosophies are quite diverse but

Each year thousands of teenagers experience the death of someone they love. When a parent, sibling, friend, or relative dies, teens feel the overwhelming loss of someone who helped shape their -fragile self-identities. Caring adults, whether parents, teachers, counselors or friends, can help teens during this time. If adults are open, honest and loving, experiencing the loss of someone loved can be a chance for young people to learn about both the joy and pain that comes from caring deeply for others. There are many common reactions to trauma, grief, and bereavement among teens. First of all, shock and denial. Feeling numb, stunned and dazed are healthy and normal reactions. Often, it is difficult to “take in” information. The grieved may

Death is a part of life and eventually everyone on this earth will experience it. Nurses play an important role in death. Mourning the death of a loved one is something that almost everyone will experience in this lifetime because it is a natural response to death. Bereavement, grief and mourning are all effected by one’s culture, religion, the relationship with the deceased, personality, and how the person died.

The process model of coping with bereavement identified two types of stressors related to bereavement: “loss-oriented stressors and restoration-oriented stressors. Loss-oriented stressors are essentially those that relate directly to the death and the feelings associated with it. These types of stressors include ruminating on the emotions associated with the deceased, concentrating on how life had been prior to the loss, and focusing on the actual circumstances surrounding the death. Restoration-oriented

Death is a universally experienced phenomenon. In the United States alone, over 2.6 million people die each year (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). For practitioners, it is of utmost importance to better understand the process of grief to develop better interventions for bereaved individuals.

College can be extremely hard, emotionally and intellectually. Students are thrown into an environment where they have to become completely self-sufficient, if they weren’t already, and find out who they want to be. Classes are harder and the homework is more involved, and we are expected know what right and wrong is, in a world full of completely wrong choices happening around us. Simply put, college is stressful and confusing, but wonderful at that. Some students find themselves struggling with alcohol, or dating. My struggle over the past year has been my inability to ask for help with depression.

Like many of the questionnaires utilized for research in the articles used for this literature review, it was anonymous, and administered and collected during class. This form of data collection provided high turn in rates allowing researchers to have a wide study scale. According to Hicks, T., & Heastie, S., contrasting levels of stress and coping mechanisms were present in these students. It was noted that traditional college students experience more psychological stress than their nontraditional student counterparts. In addition, during the first year of college, the amount of stress experienced by students is the highest in comparison to stress in the remainder of the years. These results are especially important because it stresses the need for a strong health and wellness center within colleges and universities.

Being a college student could be very stressful; many students feel pressure from their family and peers to do well. The struggles of college; in academic, social, and economical factors, would be much harder without a support system. Encouragement of family members is a very important

Consequently, the death of an individual presents some of the painful experiences of people associated with the deceased. Thus, a feeling of loneliness and vulnerability which is characterized a withdrawal symptom as members struggle to resume their daily activities (Lampman, 1997). Family members will also have a feeling of pain and hurt as they struggle with anxiety and loneliness which often takes time to diminish. Another feeling that the bereaved members go through is panic and anxiety as it makes it difficult to concentrate on daily activities because of constant memories of the dead relative (Lampman, 1997). During the grieving period, the

Before the main problems for college students were homesickness and relationships. Now the majority of students struggle with depression, anxiety, and self-harm.

Depression and anxiety among college students is something that experts have focused on for the past twenty years. The information they have been gathering ranges from the different stressors of college life to the effects of one's culture on how they deal with depression or anxiety symptoms. They have identified a few core characteristics of depression and thoughts of suicide. These are both serious concepts in which people need to seek help for. It is important for students to reach out to friends, family, or professionals to support them during this time. Many campuses offer counseling centers which are seeing many more people over the past few years.

College students are a unique population of people who have a variety of different stressors than people who do not attend college (Holinka, 2015). Post-secondary education is a stressful time for both traditional and nontraditional students (Yarbrough & Schaffer, 1990). Regardless of student status whether it may be traditional, nontraditional, freshman- senior, all students experience stress at one time or another. Trenz, Ecklund-Flores, and Rapoza (2015), illustrate those traditional and nontraditional students both face life stress, anxiety, and depression but manage stress, anxiety-provoking events, and negative situations quite differently. Navigating through a new chapter in life increases the amount of stress on an individual. Interestingly, research shows that traditional and nontraditional student sample score similarly when tested on their emotional satisfaction with their support system—suggesting that differences in support are unlikely to explain differences in stress levels between these two groups (Carney-Crompton & Tan, 2002).

Worden, J. (2009). Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner. 4th ed. New York: