Loss Oriented Stressors

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

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

When an individual dies, their death can greatly impact the loved ones they leave behind. Each mourner may feel and perceive the death differently from one another, but one common factor that can influence the mourner’s beliefs, values, and views about a person’s death is their culture. Their culture can

Death in cross cultural perspectives Death is inevitable part of human experience, which is often associated with fear of unknown, separation, and spiritual connection. Death is an individual experience, which is based on unique perceptions and beliefs. Fear of death and dying seems to be a universal phenomenon, which is closely associated with apprehension and uneasiness. Death is allied with permanent loss, thus personal experiences of grief are similar in many different cultures. There are different mourning ceremonies, traditions, and behaviors to express grief, but the concept of permanent loss remains unchanged in cross cultural setting. With this paper I will identify cross-cultural perspectives on death and dying, and will analyze

Therefore, there cannot be an anthropological study of death, but only of behavior toward death as it affects those who survive. It must be a study of “how others die”; examining the reactions of survivors and interpreting these reactions through ceremonies, ritual practices, ideological rationalizations- in short, as “folklore” (Robben, 52). Death-related behavior will then be placed at a safe distance from the core of one’s own society. Anthropologists also see mourning as a transitional period for the survivors. However, mourning requirements are based on degrees of kinship and are systematized by each people according to their special way of calculating that kinship (Robben, 214). During mourning, social life is suspended for all those affected by it, and the length of the period increases with the closeness of social ties to the deceased, and with a higher social standing of the death person. For example, if the dead man was a chief, the suspension affects the entire

Death anxiety is a multifaceted nervousness that can include fear of the process of dying, the death in itself, and what happens after death (Zilberfein and Hurwitz, 2004). Yalom (2002) writes that the fear of death haunts each individual throughout life and that many people build denial-based defense mechanisms in order to cope with an ever-present awareness of death. The process of dying is both known and unknown, and nowhere is death anxiety more apparent than in patients suffering from terminal illness. According to Zilberfein and Hurwitz (2004), fear in patients suffering from fatal diseases can cause: (1) dependency, (2) increased chronic pain, (3) a loss of sense of control, and (4) significant attention paid to the question of what “lies ahead”. Along similar lines, Adelbratt and Strang (2000) conducted a study exploring how patients and their next-of-kin experience death anxiety. They found that thoughts central to this nervousness include fear related to the loss of autonomy and unknown

Death has interested humans since the origins of humanity. It has spawned copious different coping mechanisms to help us come to terms with our own mortality. Anthropologists claim this contributed to the creation of religion and by extension, the use of specific, strict burial rituals across different cultures around the world. These rituals are comforting in the face of the darkest philosophical questions ever posed. On a more individual scale, coping mechanisms vary drastically between people. Edgar Allan Poe is known for the questionable coping mechanisms he used throughout his life. He suffered many tragedies and expressed his pain through alcohol abuse, gambling, and most importantly, his disturbing writings. Poe is particularly known

Adaptation to Loss: The Many Faces of Grief Hadley Rhodes Denver School of Nursing  Abstract 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

Death leaves a heartache that no one can fix. It has been like this pretty much since the beginning of time. There are obviously different types of dying, like suicide or murder for example, and also different deaths in general. Death of a friend, family member or a king or soldier as well. There are some similarities dealing with death in today’s world and earlier times.

Christians Live for Today, Buddhists Live for Tomorrow   Death is perhaps the most difficult aspect of life humans are forced to deal with. In order to help us cope, we have implemented the grieving process--a series of events with the purpose of making death easier to deal with--into our lives. Not everyone handles death in the same fashion, and each culture has rituals characteristic to itself that may differ greatly from another culture's rituals. Christianity and Buddhism are two religions that have completely different grieving processes, and in a conversation with Ms. Sit-Sen Wong, a Buddhist from Malaysia, this idea was confirmed as a fact. Through life, Buddhists constantly prepare for death and the afterlife,

The first reason of how different cultures perceive death is if people prefer funeral homes or do it yourself after-care. Some people prefer to take their deceased family members or friends to funeral home. “In a society where seeing death and speaking of it is often taboo, home funeral

Death happens to everyone in many different ways. Death is a part of life; you can't have one without the other. Awareness of the many ways humans encounter and cope with death can be beneficial for professionals involved in handling situations with the dying or bereaved. I think it's important to understand other cultures and traditions with the burial and bereavement process. Proper education on the subject can possibly help us to be more empathetic towards those grieving and possibly the ability to put ourselves in another’s

I was introduced to deaths indiscriminate nature as a very young child. Losing many close family members, countless friends along the way, and life I created, that I carried within my own body. The seemingly, random, callousness of this one word, broke me. It wasn’t until I found myself wandering along this “path”, that I would find a glimpse, into how to begin to make peace with or come to have a better understanding of death.

Philosophers have been studying the concept of death for decades to try and “learn how to die.” There are many different approaches one could take to analyze the ideal of learning to die, and it requires a multifaceted approach. Although the concept of dying will be individualized and subjective, there are several themes that we see evident in post modernized views of death and dying. After studying Plato (2002) and Dastur (2012), we can gain a better understanding of how postmodernity has affected the philosophical view of death, dying and bereavement.

This fear of death can actually be traced back to ancestral roots. Davis (2009) emphasises that it was not the fear of dying (or the fear of ceasing to exist) itself that troubled these ancestors, but rather the implications pertaining to death such as the pain usually involved and the worry of the future of one’s tribe. It is interesting to note, then, the modern man’s greatest fears surrounding death. Abdel-Khalek’s (2002) empirical study found that, aside from the contemporary construct of religion, the highest scoring factor which participants nominated as the reasoning behind the fear was indeed “parting from [their] relatives and beloved” (p. 675), followed closely by “acute pains associated with dying” (p. 675). The similarities between the fears of ancestors and modern man relating to death suggest an embedded trait. From this example, it is argued that fear is an inherited, genetic tendency which has persisted through countless generations of evolution.