Disenfranchised Grief By Kenneth Doka

However, the characters in Ordinary People do not conform to the stereotypical gender grief scripts and instead reflect the different grieving styles captured in Martin and Doka’s (2011) grieving styles continuum. Martin and Doka (2011) conceptualizes grieving styles ranging on a continuum from intuitive to instrumental. Grieving styles reflect individuals’ ability to adapt to loss and are distinguished by their use of cognitive and affective domains to process grief.

Each of the main characters in the novel are grieving over the loss of a loved one. As a result, one of the key themes focuses on survival tactics used after suffering a loss. Each character chooses a different way to manage their grieving process.

On reading this article and identifying the study, there was a clear insight on how death and dying, and even improved health, impacted those nurses (Conte, 2014). Nurses, who worked closely with their patients, through the perils and suffering, culminating of death and losses, had grief not readily explored to enable that comfort zone (Conte, 2014).

In “The Victims” by Sharon Olds it describes a divorce through the eyes of the parents’ children. The first section is shown through past tense as the speaker is a child and the last section is shown in present tense with the speaker already being an adult trying to make sense of past events. The word “it” in the first two lines carries a tremendous weight, hinting at the ever so present abuse and mistreatment, but remaining non-specific. The first part generates a negative tone toward the father who is referred to as malicious by the mother who “took it” from him “in silence” until she eventually “kicked him out.” Through the entirety of the poem the children are taught to hate their father. Who taught them? Their mother showed them that their father was a villain and were taught to have no sympathy for him but “to hate you and take it” and so they did so. Although the poem never directly states what the father did to receive the family’s hated, the speaker gives examples as to why he is hated.

Cumulative grief is known as a caregiver’s emotional response to many episodes of grief (Shorter & Stayt). The multiple encounters with death give a nurse no opportunity to grieve adequately or completely for each individual patient that has died (Shorter & Stay, 2010). The unresolved grief accumulates and can lead to emotional and physicals problems which can then effect a nurse professionally and personally (Shorter & Stayt, 2010). The effects of cumulative grief include denial, feelings of decreased personal competency, overwhelming grief, low self-esteem, and pre-occupation with death (Shorter & Stayt,

Grief does not change you, it reveals you.-John Green. Grief is something someone have to overcome in a period of time. Grief does not have a date and time Grief is something everyone experience in life such as your parents dying or a favorite pet running away. Grief is deep sorrow you experience from the lost of someone close. It is a physical and mental change in everyday people lives.

“Ordinary people” everywhere are faced day after day with the ever so common tragedy of losing a loved one. As we all know death is inevitable. We live with this harsh reality in the back of our mind’s eye. Only when we are shoved in the depths of despair can we truly understand the multitude of emotions brought forth. Although people may try to be empathetic, no one can truly grasp the rawness felt inside of a shattered heart until death has knocked at their door. We live in an environment where death is invisible and denied, yet we have become desensitized to it. These inconsistencies appear in the extent to which families are personally affected by death—whether they

In relation to the purpose of this study, the driving force behind the research are three questions. What are nurses experience following patient’s death? What are their actions and coping strategies following patient death? Would better learning opportunities and supportive practice environments be provided once there is an understanding of nurses’ grief and coping process, if yes, was it beneficial. The researchers proceeded with a broad question which allowed the focus to be sharpened and delineated later in the

Disability, which can be defined as the possession of a physical or mental condition that limits activity, movement, and sensation, affects nearly 20 percent of the United States’ population. Because of this, it is easy to understand why there are so many works of literature that portray, and define disability. “Crippled,” “disabled,” “differently abled” are just a few of the many words that help to define the way in which society views those who are disabled. Disability, which can provide a sense of societal alienation, is experienced by the speaker in What You Mourn, by Sheila Black. The speaker’s impairment, one as simple as a crooked leg, does not go unnoticed by society.

Facilitating healthy grieving – In Mr Dwight’s case, healthy grieving can be achieved by seeing if the nurses have provided an environment where he feels free to express his feelings such as anger, fear or guilt without judgement (Heitkemper, 2015, p.91). If Mr Dwight is able to comfortably express his feeling in front of the nurses and have

I agree that as nurses we need to be empathetic in dealing with sensitive matters. In healthcare, especially if you have been a nurse for a long time, it is easy to treat situations as common place because nurses deal with them frequently. Murphy and Philpin (2010) give us greater understanding and their qualitative study underscores the importance of not treating any loss or trauma as commonplace. Radford & Hughes (2015) also conducted a qualitative study, using a meta-ethnography design in order to identify critical themes in the literature with respect to the phenomena of loss by women experiencing early miscarriage and found four predominate themes: ‘‘what I feel’, ‘care for me and communicate with me’, ‘me, my baby and others’ and ‘help

In today 's society grief can be overlooked, as if it is something that should not happen, something that is shame full, grief is something that is complex and has many stages that are neglected to be recognized. The episode of Private Practice entitled "Mourning Sickness" highlights the social norms of what grieving should look like and blows them out of the water. Backed by numerous sources on grief and the true effects of loss the director of the episode shows the audience the many things wrong with the societal perception and the massive impact loss has on a family and those close to them along with how the actions of others affect them.

Similarly, a study taken from the International Journal of Older People Nursing shows that that in one-third of the cases, “nursing staff members who were caring for residents who died with dementia reported that they experienced what they perceived as a high emotional burden” (Albers, Block, Stichele 2013). Healthcare workers in another study reported “feelings of guilt” and moral dilemma regarding patient deaths (Dwyer, Hansebo, Andershed, and Ternestedt 2009). In this same study it is important to note that the participants acknowledged that death is accepted as a natural part of the process, however it was the circumstances under which the residents died and the employees employee’s feelings of personal responsibility for meeting individualized needs of the residents that upset the employees the most. Most caretakers enter enters the profession due to a desire help others, and it is inevitable that they form bonds with the residents they care for. This feeling of responsibility coupled with the sheer frequency of experiencing the death of residents they care for can in turn generate depressive symptoms.

The theory of chronic sorrow is a middle range nursing theory explored largely by Georgene Gaskill Eakes, Mary Lermnann Burke and Maragret A. Hainsworth. The theory provides framework for understanding and working with individuals who have experienced a significant loss of a loved one. As stated by Eakes et al. (1998, p. 179), Chronic sorrow is described as “…the periodic recurrence of permanent, pervasive sadness or other grief related feelings associated with a significant loss.” As nurses, it is vitally important to understand and be aware of the high potential for chronic sorrow to occur when treating patients across the life span with chronic and traumatic conditions.

Freud (1957) was initially attributed with the term grief work which traditionally stated that individuals who were experiencing bereavement must experience some form of grief work in order to progress through the motions of loss, in more recent times research has suggested that while it may provide benefits for some individuals, others may appear to benefit more through methods of distractions or through the suppression of emotions related to grief (Bonanno 1995). Doughty et al (2001) employs this argument by criticizing the five stage model for its method of universality that perhaps ignores the individuality of the human experience and how it manifests in the grieving process, while some may go through the five stages in a linear process, others may not experience most of the phases in the model. This is an important factor to note for care practitioners as it is critical to be aware when working with diverse clients of their unique experiences, in order to provide practises that tailor to the needs of the client (Goldsworthy