Funeral Service Psychology and Counseling 1 Flashcards
The study of human behavior. A complex science of understanding how and why individuals react to certain stimuli or conditions.
Psychology
The study of human behavior as it relates to funeral service.
- Not a new or uniquely different discipline- a combination of general psychology, grief therapy and counseling, the psychology of grief and bereavement, and general counseling.
Funeral Psychology
- Needs a thorough understanding of grief and bereavement because the general public has a more in-depth knowledge of the subject.
- Must be familiar with the purpose and techniques of counseling
The Funeral Director
- Confidant
- Counselor (debatable)
- Advisor
- Caregiver
Nature of the Relationship betwen the Funeral Director and Clients
Involves assisting clients to better understand themselves and how to cope with their problems.
- Counselor brings empathy and specific helping skills to guide clients into exploring their feelings and values, understanding their problems, making choices, and iplementing changes in thoughts, affect and behavior. (do not tell clients how they ought to live their lives)
The Helping Process
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Exploration Stage
- Phase 1
- Phase 2
-
Insight Stage
- Phase 3
- Phase 4
-
Action Stage
- Phase 5
- Phase 6
- Phase 7
Hill and O’Brien’s 3-Stage Model Combined with Wolfelt’s Phases in a Helping Relationship
The family notifies the funeral home of the death and asks the funeral director to handle arrangements.
- This is in actuality a “cry for help.”
Exploration Stage
Phase 1: The client and funeral director enter into a helping relationshp.
The extent of the relationship moves from basic to helping as rapport develops between the funeral director and the family.
- Cannot occur if the family does not perceive the funeral director as empathic, warm, respectful, and genuine. The funeral Director projects these traits by showing concern, caring, and a willingness to assist the family however is necessary.
Exploration Stage
Phase 2: The building of a helping relationship
Though active listening and skillful questioning, the funeral director gathers information about the deceased, and the family’s needs, wishes, and feelings. He then explains the options available to them.
Insight Stage
Phase 3: Exploration and assistance in helping the family understand their alternatives.
After explaining and clairifying all options, the funeral director assists the family in planning a funeral that meets their needs.
Insight Stage
Phase 4: Consolidation and Planning
The funeral director implements the plan desired by the family, whether the plan calls for a direct disposition or a funeral that involves visitation, viwing, and a committal service.
Action Stage
Phase 5: Implementation and action.
Wolfelt suggests that funeral directors assist the family with a sense of closure such as joining them in the fellowship that often follows the funeral.
Action Stage
Phase 6: Conclusion of the Funeral Process
This is known in most funeral homes as “aftercare”.
Action Stage
Phase 7: Post Funeral Follow-Up
An emotion of group of emotions caused by loss.
Grief
The act or event of loss that results in the experience of grief.
Bereavement
An adjustment process that involves grief or sorrow over a period of time and helps in the reorganization of the life of an individual following the loss or death of someone loved.
Mourning
- Confirm the reality
- Express their emotions
- Modify emotional ties with the deceased
- Memorialize the person’s life
- Recognize and complete unfinished business
- Receive emotional support
- Be assured feelings are normal
- Be accepted for where they are
- Establish stability and security
- Provide a basis for building new interpersonal relationships
Common Needs of Bereaved People
Talking helps the survivors to understand what has happened, to make it real.
- Understanding as much as possible about the death can help confirm its reality.
- Unexpected deaths are harder for the family to understand and take longer to process (homicide, accident, suicide)
Confirm the Reality
Feelings such as happiness, anger and grief created by brain patterns and bodily changes.
Emotions
- Avoid cliches- they suppress the expression of the bereaved’s emotions.
- Expression of emotions can be vastly different for survivors
- Can be expressed by crying, screaming, saying the words, etc. What form they take does not matter, just the expression.
Express their Emotions
Survivors must break the ties of the old relationship and begin to develop a new life without the person.
- Must face the hard reality that their life with the deceased is changed forever.
Modify Emotional Ties with the Deceased
These symbolic events can be one method of marking the end of the old and the beginning of the new relationship.
- Funeral, memorial service
- Starting a charity or scholarship in the person’s name
- Building a wing in a hospital
- Headstones
Memorialize the Person’s Life
Most people feel that when the death happens, the opportunity to do this ends. A counselor can be helpful in assisting people to recognize, acknowledge, and finish unfinished business.
- Talking to deceased’s body at wake
- Writing the deceased a letter
- Visualizing the dead person and tellin him what you wanted to say while he was alive
Recognize and Complete Unfinished Business
Most bereaved people find the love and attention given them by family and friends comforting.
- Need nonjudgemental acceptance of people who really care about them
- If not from friends and family- counselor can step in
Receive Emotional Support
The feelings following death can be so foreign and strange that the survivor feels he must be going insane because he has never felt this way before.
- Trained counselor can help relieve the fear and anxiety and assist the survivor in realizing these feelings are normal responses to a normal death.
Be Assured Feelings are Normal
Survivors should not be told that they should be feeling a certain way at a certain time
Be Accepted for Where They Are
These feelings may be lost or out of control for survivors after a death. They will slowly return as time passes, even though their life will not be the same as before the death.
Establish Stability and Security
- Strengthen present relationships
- Can be from friendships, love or both.
- A new love relationship does not mean the deceased is forgotten, but that the survivor learned how to navigate the pathways of relationship building and nurture love for a new person.
Provide a Basis for Building new Interpersonal Relationships
- Provides acting-out ceremonies that give expresion to feelings too deep to be put into words.
- Provides the framework for group support
- Encourages the expression of feelings
- Provides values to live by
Dodge Magazine: The funeral does 4 specfic things that are available to everyone.
The funeral is the most accessible and most adequate resource for this purpose, and the most economical.
- Generally understood
- Possesses resources for meeting the varied social, emotional, and spiritual needs of the bereaved
The Funeral Provides Acting-Out Ceremonies that Give Expression to Feelings too Deep to be put into Words
- Possible for people to get together, visit, and communicate and relate to each other
- Provides many ways for people to express love and concern
- Makes people feel comfortable in doing what would otherwise be more distressing
The Funeral Provides the Framework for Group Support
The whole funeral process of a feeling-oriented activity.
- Feelings are so important that they need to be recognized and expressed.
The Funeral Encourages the Expression of Feelings
- Confirms the value of lief in the presence of death
- Shows respect for the dead and the living
- Each funeral carries with it challenges to a new and better life.
The Funeral Provides Values to Live By
- Provides an opportunity to receive and express love.
- Shows respect to the deceased’s family and friends.
- provides opportunity to express grief
- Provides a face-to-face confrontation with death which confirms its reality
- Allows emotional support through sharing
- Meets the needs theologically, psychologically, and socially of those who mourn
- Provides an opportunity for farewell through ritual
- Provides a dramatic representation of the fact that a life has been lived by reflecting upon memories of the deceased.
- Helps establish emotional stability through a social support network.
- Establishes a socially acceptable climate for mourning.
Purpose and Values of the Funeral Ritual
(American Board of Funeral Service Education)
Any behavior people develop and maintain that enables them to be close to another individual.
Attachment Behavior (Bowlby)
- Humans have an instinctive need to form strong attachments to others.
- Attachments come from a need for security and safety.
- Situations that endanger the bond of that attachment give rise to emotional reactions.
- The greater the potential loss, the more intense the reaction.
Bowlby’s Attachment Theory
Suggested that many of the bereaved’s symptoms were physical.
- Tightness in the throat
- Choking
- Shortness of breath
- Need for sighing
- empty feeling in the abdomen
- Lackof muscular power
Erik Lindemann
- Somatic or bodily distress
- Preoccupation with the image of the deceased
- Guilt relating to the deceased and the circumstances of the death
- Hostile reactions
- The inability to function as one had before the death
Lindemann’s Grief Syndrome
A set of symptoms associated with loss.
Grief Syndrome
- Emancipation from bondage to the deceased
- Readjustment to the environment in which the deceased is missing
- Formation of new relationships
“Coping with grief is an experience that is physically, emotionally, and psychologically draining.”
Lindemann’s Grief Work
A process occurring with loss, aimed at loosening the attachment to the dead for reinvesting in the living.
- Involves a change in one’s self-concept, aspirations, goals, and relationships to the outside world.
Grief Work
A person may not go through these stages in order or may have more than one at a time.
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
Kubler-Ross’s Stages in the Process of Dying
A defense mechanism by which a person is unable or refuses to see things as they are because such facts are threatening to the self.
- Overwhelming sense of unreality
- A time when the mind is trying to comprehend event but is unable to accept the full impact.
Denial
Blame directed at another person.
Anger
Attempting to make deals wtih God to stop or change the diagnosis by begging, wishing, praying not to die, or at leat to delay death.
Bargaining
Overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, frustration, bitterness, self-pity, mourning the impending loss of hopes, dreams and plans for the future.
- Person feels a lack of control or numbness
Depression
Knowing the impending death is real, not liking the fact, but realizing you must go on.
Acceptance
- Accept the reality of the loss
- Experience the pain of grief and to express emotions associated with it.
- To adjust to the environment in which the deceased is missing
- To withdraw emotional energy and reinvest it in another relationship.
Tasks of Mourning (Worden)
When someone dies, even if the death is expected, there is always a sense that it never happened. This can range from a normal short-term slight distortion to an abnormal delusion.
Accept the Reality of the Loss
- Pain can be physical or emotional
- For some people the pain is not honestly experienced
- If the pain is not honestly experienced with associated feelings, it can last a lifetime
Experience the pain of grief and express emotions associated with it
- People may have to learn new tasks that they have never done before- tasks the deceased normally took care of
- May be loneliness
Adjust to the Environment in Which the Deceased is Missing
- Survivor may try to hold into the feelings of the past attachment
- May have a fear of forgetting the deceased
- May be afraid a new relationship will end and cause them more pain
Withdraw Emotional Energy and Reinvest it in Another Relationship
Helping people facilitate grief to a healthy completion of the tasks of grieving within a reasonable time frame.
Grief Counseling
Specialized techniques which are used to help people with complicated grief reactions.
Grief Therapy
The reactions of the body to an event often experienced emotionally as a sudden, violent and upsetting disturbance.
Feelings
- Shock/disbelief/denial
- Sadness
- Loneliness
- Guilt
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Crying
- Preoccupation with thoughts of the deceased
- Dreams/nightmares
- Confusing awake events
Normal Emotional Responses
Usually occurs with sudden deaths, but may also be seen with a prolonged illness.
- Defense mechanism to allow the person tiem to adjust to the situation.
- Usually short-term
Shock/Disbelief/Denial
- Felt for the deceased for the suffering he may have had or becuase he wil no longer be abe to experiece life.
- Can be felt for oneself and for one’s own loss
Sadness
Even with all of the social events, people may still feel lonely.
Loneliness
Blame directed at oneself may and be based on real or unreal conditions.
- Often is exaggerated- death offers no resolutions to resolve issues that caused the guilt.
Guilt
- Can be directed at the deceased for dying and leaving
- Can be directed at God for not stopping death
- Can also be directed towards oneself
Anger
A state of tension typically characterized by rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath. An emotion characterized by a vague fear or premonition that something undesirable is going to happen.
- Ranges from insecurity to intense panic
- Causes may be fear of one’s own death or how life will be without the deceased person
Anxiety
Has therapeutic value. Diminished the negative effects of pent-up emotions and relieves stress.
Crying
- May cause absentmindedness or the inability to concentrate
- May be of past life with the deceased
- Can be about the deceased still being alive
Preoccupations with Thoughts of the Deceased
- Bad- may be because of anxiety, guilt or anger
- Good- may give a person a feeling of reassurance and calm
Dreams/Nightmares
Many people believe these to be spiritual or paranormal happenings.
- Seeing or hearing the deceased
- Feeling as though the deceased is present
- Directing events
Confusing Wake Events
- Strengthening of a person’s spiritual beliefs
- Weakening of a person’s spiritual beliefs
- Causing questions as to the meaning of life and death, beliefs, and values
Normal Spiritual Responses
- Preoccupation with death
- Inability to concentrate
- Disorganized thoughts
- “I wish I could have a few more minutes with..”
- “I wish it would have been me…”
- “It all seems like a bad dream”
- Sense of presence, seeing, hearing loved one
- Suicidial thoughts
- Inability to remember
- Easily distracted
- “Why?”
- “I think I am going crazy”
- “If only…”
Normal Cognitive Responses (Thinking)
- Doing or saying things contrary to beliefs or accustomed behavior.
- Staying inside all the time or needing to stay away from home.
- Frequent visits to gravesite, church or places associated with the deceased
- Loss of interest in social activities and the world in general.
- Sleep disturbances - bad dreams, trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
- Changes in eating habits and appetite, social withdrawal
- Increase in chemical use
- Frequent crying or angry outbursts
Normal Behavorial Responses (Actions)
- Sighing
- Headaches
- Startle response
- Crying
- Menstrual difficulties
- Dizziness
- Fatigue
- Trembling
- Muscular tension
- Insomnia
- Emptiness in gut
- Appetite loss
- Stomach problems
- Something stuck in throat
- Lowered immunity to illness
- Sexual desire changes
- Shortness of breath
- Increase/decreased activity
Normal Phsysical Responses
- Negative thoughts
- Confusion
- Difficulty concentrating
- Lower productivity
- Sleeplessness
- Forgetting details
- Mind going blank
Normal Mental Responses
