Lee Chandler's Diagnosis

Throughout his childhood, John Wade was verbally and emotionally abused by his father, who was an alcoholic. His father would often make fun of his weight as he would call him names such as “Jiggling John”, and “blubby little pansy” (O’Brien, pg 67) and this would cause John to be insecure about his body. Despite being hurt from his father’s words, John still loved his father and thought that he was joking, but John was too young to understand that his father was an alcoholic. When his father died, John was devastated that he decided to imagine that his father was still alive through his mirror. John would often speak to his father through a mirror about anything. In a 2005 research, Prigereson and Maciejewski called for the studies of symptoms of complicated grief Criteria B, which is trouble with accepting death. This was the same situation with John as he struggles to accept his father’s death. Study show that older children (teens and pre-teens) are more likely to express post-traumatic stress symptoms when they deal with the death of a loved one (family member). They show symptoms such as inability to accept death, revenge fantasies and mistrust. (Egan, Pg 204). This would relate to John as his father’s death occurred when he was just fourteen. When he couldn’t accept his father’s

Later, Prigerson et al. (1999) researched disordered grief and found a number of differences as related to anxiety and depression. Both Horowitz and Prigerson’s studies found similarities in that participants had prolonged longing for the deceased, extreme impairing thoughts about the deceased, extreme denial of the death and avoidance ( Boelen & Prigerson, 2007).

and having carefully analyzed the text, I am leaning towards a diagnosis of, major depressive disorder. The observed symptoms, which the protagonist seems to line up with the following symptoms listed in for Major depressive disorder in the DSM-5 checklist provided in the book (Comer, 2014). In the short story, the protagonist has mentioned and expressed with her actions feeling: in a depressed mood for most of the day, Daily diminished interest or pleasure in almost all activates for most of the day, Decrease in daily appetite, experiencing hypersomnia, daily fatigue or loss of energy (Comer, 2014). These things mentioned are symptoms that are categorized as being

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.

The second advised step to experiencing a progressive grieving process is anger. Although anger is the suggested step after denial, many people do not experience it in this order or at all. Halperin defines anger, “when you wake up from the dreamy state of denial, you’ll find yourself in mile two . . . anger” (70); this explains the idea that people become very angry at the fact that something extremely saddening has occurred in their life. There is an instance when Walter Lee shows a form of anger, “WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE LISTEN TO ME TODAY” (Hansberry 399), illustrating the idea that he becomes frustrated at the fact that his father passed away. Walter Lee does not necessarily feel this stage second; he could have felt anger immediately after his father passed away. Many people deal with grief by showing numerous forms of temperament; however, not everyone in the stories go through this step second and some do not experience it at all. While anger is the second step that is wrongly proposed in order to undergo a normal grieving process, bargaining is the third.

Julie Axelrod’s article reinstates the five stages of grief that were first proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying (1969), explaining the five phases individuals are said to go through when faced with difficult situations such as the loss of a relative, close friendship, valued possession, etc. The five stages of grief are: 1. Denial and isolation; 2. Anger; 3. Bargaining; 4.

Grief and loss are one of the most universal human experiences, though painful, and understandably causes distress. However, approximately 15 % experience a more problematic grieving process with elevated symptoms of depression and/or posttraumatic stress symptoms (Bonanno and Kaltman, 1999).There is no well-established model of the timeline for resolution of grief and the variance of its expression is wide. Many persons cope with the emotional pain of bereavement without any formal intervention. However, individuals who have experienced traumatic bereavement, such as deaths that are sudden, violent, or due to human actions (Green 2000), may face particular challenges. Researchers have tried to define a model for the treatment of traumatic bereavement that fully supports not only the client, but also those working with the clients around their trauma

Since the start of time, and the preceding generations, death has impacted people and the way they act. A sudden, or even an expected death of a loved one, takes a toll on a person. It’s human nature for people to process and want to make sense of death and the loss it leaves behind. The five stages of grief reflect this process of dealing with the loss of a loved one. Through these stage of grieving, people can get lost either searching for answers or trying to get past it. In Hamlet, William Shakespeare depicts the role human nature plays in the striving for answers and justice surrounding death. Even though Hamlet was written early in the seventeenth century, the depiction of death and human nature still rings true today; people 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

M. 1998. Coping with loss: Bereavement in adult life. Bmj, 316(7134), 856-859. Petersen, A. C., Compas, B. E., Brooks-Gunn, J., Stemmler, M., E, S., & Grant, K. E. 1993. Depression in adolescence.

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).

Two types of depression are associated with mourning. The first one is a reaction to practical implications relating to the loss. Sadness and

Sigmund Freud was an influential psychoanalyst in the late 18th century to the early 19th century. He made many advances in the field of psychology which have impacted other academic areas such as sociology and social work. In his 1915 paper “Mourning and Melancholia” he connected the normal realm with the pathological. In which he “compared mourning – a normal if painful event from which hardly anyone is spared – with a pathological although very common one: melancholia” (Fiorini et al. 2007). The natural human process is to mourn the loved subject or object when it is lost. Freud explains that grief is the feeling of losing love and once it is fully lost desolation and fear takes its place

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 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