Essay about Grief and Bereavement

Bereavement and loss - The loss of a loved one such as a parent, sibling, grandparent or friend can turn a child’s world upside down. Grief can bring all sorts of emotions, upset, sadness, hurt and anger because they are gone and, fear because the child may be afraid of other loved ones dying too. A child can be affected by grief for a long period of time, and this may impact on their emotional and physical

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

The loss of an adult child is devastating, just as is the death of a younger child. However, there are differences as to how both the parents react to such losses. In this case the paper focuses on the loss of an adult child and how the parent copes with the situation. The paper will give insight into the situation that precedes the demise of the child such as the trajectory of illnesses. A review on how the parents deal with the loss after it occurs will be discussed as well as the various issues the parent faces. The impact on the parent after the child’s loss will also feature. There will be a summary of the findings, then a section that will give the implications of the research and its importance to the field of psychology, and finally an as well as focusing on the bigger picture of loss with older parents who have lost their children.

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

The child who died is considered a gift to the parents and family, and they are forced to give up that gift. Yet, as parents, they also strive to let their child's life, no matter how short, be seen as a gift to others. These parents seek to find ways to continue to love, honor, and value the lives of their children and continue to make the child's presence known and felt in the lives of family and friends. Bereaved parents often try to live their lives more fully and generously because of this painful experience.

The last step is reorganization and restoration. This phase does not occur quickly. Here people begin to sort out suspicions and attempt to identify what was lost. There is a sense of release, renewed energy, more socialization, better judgments and more stable eating and sleeping habits. Readaptation to the loss does not mean forgetting. Adults can begin to restore emotional well being by acknowledging feelings, asking for support, reestablishing routines and reaching out to others. They can care for the needs of children by listening to their feelings and fears, providing information to clarify what occurred and whether it can affect their lives and by reestablishing routines that will comfort and reassure. There are many factors that influence the reaction of a child when death is announced to them. Factors include, the way the news is

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.

When a loved one dies, children handle their grief differently than adults, but they still often grieve very deeply in their own way. Much of the grief children experience comes from the fact that children often lose friends to a sudden death such as a traffic accident. The loss of older loved ones may be more anticipated, such as

It's a process that has to be dealt with. Another symptom that people experience is the feeling of numbness. People become so sad about their loss that nothing seems to matter to them anymore. The feeling of joy is gone and nothing brings happiness anymore. People go through their day without feeling anything. Their sadness spreads all over them and they can't control it. Grief is an immediate feeling. It can have various results such as pain, depression, and sadness. Our weakness begins to show more now than ever when we are grieving. We Losing a loved one is different for every person. Every person is different but there is definitely a clear pattern. In total, there are three outcome patterns. The first outcome pattern is chronic grief. Chronic grief is when someone becomes extremely depressed and a high level of grief. This type of grief can last for many years. The second type of grief is called the common grief pattern. This is when a elevation of symptoms such as depression, stress, and anxiety occur but last about a year or two. The third type of grief is when a person is not affected at all by the death of someone. This is very common for people. People may still be sad but they just are not emotional about it and grieve in different ways.

D1/D2/A1 For most people bereavement will be the most troubling experience they will ever face. Grief is what we feel when somebody that is close to us has died everyone experiences grief in different way there is no correct way for someone to grief. For many children and young people the death of a parent or sibling is an experience they are faced with early in life. Children and young people need to be given the opportunity to grieve ignoring the child’s grief is not protective and can be damaging. Children and young people regardless of their age need to be encouraged to talk about how they are feeling and supported to understand their emotions. During their development children do not understand that death in irreversible this can be shown as children do not understand the term death

Death and dying is a natural and unavoidable process that all living creatures will experience at some point in life, whether it is one’s own person death or the death of a close friend or family member. Along with the experience of death comes the process of grieving which is the dealing and coping with the loss of the loved one. Any living thing can grieve and relate to a loss, even children (Shortle, Young, & Williams, 1993). “Childhood grief and mourning of family and friends may have immediate and long-lasting consequences including depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, behavioral disturbances, and school underachievement” (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2006, p. 61). American children today grow up in cultures that attempt to avoid grief and

Grief is the act following the loss of a loved one. While grief and bereavement are normal occurrences, the grief process is a social construct of how someone should behave. The acceptable ways that people grieve change because of this construct. For a time it was not acceptable to grieve; today, however, it is seen as a necessary way to move on from death (Scheid, 2011).The grief process has been described as a multistage event, with each stage lasting for a suggested amount of time to be considered “normal” and reach resolution. The beginning stage of grief is the immediate shock, disbelief, and denial lasting from hours to weeks (Wambach, 1985). The middle stage is the acute mourning phase that can include somatic and emotional turmoil. This stage includes acknowledging the event and processing it on various levels, both mentally and physically. The final stage is a period of

Nader and Salloum (2011) made clear that, at different ages, children differ in their understanding of the universality, inevitability, unpredictability, irreversibility, and causality of death. They believed, despite the increasing understanding with age of the physical aspects of death, a child may simultaneously hold more than one idea about the characteristics of death. However, factors that complete the determining nature of childhood grieving across different age groups may be a difficult task for a number of reasons including their environment in means of the support they have available, the child’s nature in terms of their personality, genetics, and gender, coping skills and previous experiences, the developmental age, grieving style, whether or not therapy was received, and the relationship to the deceased (Nader & Salloum, 2011). Crenshaw (2005) found that according to our current understanding of childhood traumatic grief and normal grief, thoughts and images of a traumatic nature are so terrifying, horrific, and anxiety provoking that they cause the child to avoid and shut out these thoughts and images that would be comforting reminders of the person who died. The distressing and intrusive images, reminders, and thoughts of the traumatic circumstances of the death, along with the physiological hyper-arousal associated with such re-experiencing, prevent the child from proceeding in a healthy way with the grieving process (Crenshaw, 2005). McClatchy, Vonk, and

The loss of an adult child is devastating just as is the death of a younger child. However, there are differences as to how both the parents react to such losses. In this case the paper focuses on loss of an adult child and how the parent copes with the situation. The paper will give insight on the situation that precedes the demise of the child such as trajectory of illnesses which is more recent. A review on how the parents deal with the loss after it occurs will be discussed as well as the various issues the parent faces. The impact on the parent after the child’s loss is also featured. There will be a summary of the findings then finally a section that will give the implications of the research and its importance to the field of psychology and an improvement in human beings

The passing of a loved one is a universal experience and every person will experience loss or heartache, at some point in their life. Some people obviously appear upset, some do not, grief is individual, dependent on; age, gender, development stage, personality, their normal stress reactions, the support available, their relationships or attachments, other death experiences, how others react to their own grief around them (Thompson & Hendry, 2012).