GRIEF

DEFINITIONS

BEREAVEMENT

Reaction to loss of close relationship.

GRIEF:

Emotional response to loss (sadness, anger, helplessness, guilt,

and despair). A part of bereavement.

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BEREAVEMENT

Common acute Common long term

phenomena phenomena
Sadness
Yearning or pining for the lost person
A need to talk about the lost person
Intrusive thoughts about the lost person
Preoccupation with images/thoughts of the lost person
Distress with reminders of the lost person
Crying, distressing Nostalgia
thoughts concerning
the loss

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THE STAGES OF GRIEF

A. SHOCK: denial disbelief

A. ACUTE MOURNING:
1. Intense feeling states: crying spells, guilt, shame, depression,
anorexia, insomnia, irritability, emptiness and fatigue
2. Social withdrawal: preoccupation with health, inability to
sustain usual work, family and personal relationship
3. Identification with the deceased: transient adoption of habits,
mannerisms and somatic symptoms of the deceased
C. RESOLUTION: return to well-being, acceptance of the loss,
awareness of having grieved and ability to recall the deceased
without subjective pain

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THE TASKS IN MOURNING

1. Accept the reality of the loss

 View body
 Talk about deceased
 View photographs and personal effects
 Distribute possessions amongst the relatives

2. Experience the pain of grief

 Do things that you enjoyed doing with the deceased rather
than avoid circumstances like visit restaurants, stop playing
golf, rationalize is in a better place and is resting

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3. Adjust to the environment in which the deceased is missing like

take their social roles by developing new skills to help you take the
roles

4. Withdraw emotional energy and reinvest it in another relationship:

creates feelings of unfaithfulness