Meaning-Reconstruction Model Essay

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).

Someone who is grieving will experience “major psychological, spiritual, social and physiological” changes throughout the grieving process (Hooyman & Kramer, 2006, p37). There are many theories and models that support these words. This essay will discuss Freud’s theory of grief work (Davies, 2004), Bowlby’s attachment theory (Walsh, 2012), and Worden’s tasks of grief (Worden & Winokuer, 2011). The major tasks of grief throughout the four different stages of life will be looked at, as well as common grief reactions, and ways to support people through these. In addition how children, adolescents, adults and the elderly understand and respond to grief will be examined. Finally how people at the various stages of life confront their own death will be looked at, including some personal examples.

Hayslip, Pruett, and Caballero (2015) construe the grief responses of young adults who have lost parents, and suggest that young adults were burdened more so than middle-aged adults. The authors propose that many young adults lack the support system that is so fundamental in coping with loss, making their grieving process more problematic. Instinctive coping responses in young adults when grieving, specifically the loss of a parent, include anger, insomnia, losing interest in endeavours, and trouble working with others. A study within this article found young adults feel more animosity towards the deceased, and more shock.

As important as it is for Gary to experience and work through the emotions associated with Chris’s death, I do not believe that this alone will be enough to help him work through his grief. Matthews and Marwit (2004) suggest that complicated grief is a pattern of non-normative behavior triggered by the loss of a loved one. The authors argue that complicated grief may resemble depression while often also including symptoms relating to separation distress and traumatic distress, illustrated by Gary’s feelings of loneliness and rumination over his relationship with Chris in addition to his anger, guilt, and social isolation. This article describes how, traditionally, it was thought that a bereaved person needed to go through “grief work” by confronting and processing emotions associated with the loss of a loved one. However, this confrontation of emotion may not be enough and recovery may also require addressing the cognitions of the bereaved person. In addition, the authors of this study suggest a dual-process model in which the bereaved person oscillates between confronting various types of stressors, then taking a break from those stressors. By utilizing EFT, Gary will essentially be doing grief work by experiencing the emotions associated with loss. Experiencing his feeling of guilt may trigger cognitions such

Young adults may also face many stressors and huge transitions during the grieving time (Servaty & Hayslip 2001). Factors such as gender of the grieving child, social support, coping skills, and more all influence the young adult and further the need for a psychosocial approach when helping this population. Mindfulness has been effectively shown to help treat depression but more research is needed to work with grief, particularly for parental grief with young adults (Cacciatore & Flint, 2012). The findings can be applied to grief work

For this paper, I decided to look into interventions that had to deal with parents, children, and adolescents mourning a loss. The two sections I will be focusing on mostly are Encountering Resistance and Finding Meaning with one intervention from Rewriting Life Narratives. As a student in the School Counseling program, I want to focus on how I could better assist my adolescent students that have had a loss and parents that are grieving over a child. A

This journal submission is a reflection on the July 14th (PTSD), 21st (Children & Grief), and 28th (Children & Grief cont.) class lectures and the videos, Alive Day, HBO (2006), Helping Children Grieve, Ford and D’Arcy, and will be the last in this series.

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

As a trainee art therapist, I feel a shift within me, from the position of a self-loathing artist to a purposeful explorer wanting to steadfastly immerse in every learning opportunity that finds me. Reflecting back, I concur it is the experiential process of witnessing the group communally support HB and CF to process distressing emotions, that subconsciously informed me of the group’s non-judgemental ability and the substantial capacity to hold, which in turn sparked this shift (Haynes, 2012; Learmonth, 1994). Gaining inspiration from Brooker’s (2010) reading, I sent out subconscious invitations for objects to find me. I felt intrigued by the connections I made with my found object; my pup’s hair shedding’s and the subsequent art response that emerged (Figure 5). I know hair shedding’s are often considered repulsive in most cultures, however these shedding’s felt special as connecting with my pup’s fur symbolically represented “finding unconditional love and acceptance”. Reflecting back I concur the art response served as a tangible object that provided evidence of my internal shift. It was also in this session, through JZ’s powerful found object art response (figure 6), I was able to resonate with the “sense of loss and grief” that I had to deal with when sorting my father’s belongings after his death.

The following is a review of the article “The “How” and “When” of Parental Loss in Adulthood: Effects on Grief and Adjustment” (Hayslip, Pruett, & Caballero, 2015). The article summarizes a study that was done to determine the impact of gender, age, and cause of death on grief. I will discuss the purpose of the research, the methods and measurements used, as well as the results and an interpretation of the findings. I will then discuss the findings of this article in relation to Berger’s discussion of grief (2014). This review will conclude with a reflection of how this article relates to my personal experience.

Bereavement is an issue that affects families all across the world. It is often hard for parents and families to comfort bereaved children as they are grieving too. Grieving parents many times ‘‘feel like they are losing their minds” (Dickens). But if parents are actively involved in helping their child’s healing process then children can learn coping flexibility and resilience and can deal with their grief in healthy ways. However numerous parents are “too emotionally wrought to comprehend the grief of their remaining children (Dickens). They, as well as other family members, experience symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and complicated Greif as they struggle to cope with the loss of their parent, spouse or child.

The article, Finding Meaning in a Child’s Violent Death: A Five-Year Prospective Analysis of Parents’ Personal Narratives and Empirical Data by Shirley A Murphy, L Clark Johnson, and Janet Lohan starts by discussing how our world is seen as a place of meaning and happiness. For some parents this world can easily become a nightmare by having a child die by suicide, homicide, or a tragic accident. The authors discuss two different perspectives, cognitive and existential theories. Parents that take the cognitive perspective seek to make void the tragic event by searching for as many facts as possible, even when every fact is made known, and by looking for the positives in the event. The existential route consists of parents immediately focusing

Art facilitates the expression of feelings, thoughts, and memories in ways that words cannot. What is more, art therapy has the potential to help traumatized children make sense of their experiences, communicate grief and loss, and become active participants in their own healing process ( Malchiodi, 2005)

A creative channel is produced through art therapy for children who are struggling with certain situations in their lives. Some children who qualify for the use of art therapy are children who are going through a family death, have been sexually abused, physically abused, suffer from depression, or are diagnosed with schizophrenia. An organization known as Art Therapy for Children makes a point that “children of all ages, nationalities, races and cultures can benefit from art therapy” and goes on to explain, “programs are developed around a child’s strengths and abilities, so the kid can use the medium even if he or she has never picked up a crayon before” (How Art Therapy Can Help

Parenthood is a life lesson, it teaches you so much you didn’t know you had in you to deal with. For a parent to spend all their hard sweat and tear into raising a child, and then the child passes away. There is a great big emotional distress on those parents, the coping of that lost child. Men and women both deal with grief in different ways. Everyone deals with death differently, some take it well and others don’t take it too good. Depression is the biggest part of the grieving process, there are no time limits on how long you can have this, but most parents will accept what has happened and live their life to the best of their ability. This paper will help you learn the different ways parents can cope and help them deal with the loss of their child. And has a study provided the information.