Death, Dying and Bereavement Flashcards
What is the social cognitive transition model of adjustment?
When an expectation isn’t confirmed, the first thing that happens is protective buffering.
We all want to hold on to our assumptions and expectations.
To adapt, there is discomfort and threat. After a while, with some support and people around you who love you, people ADJUST. Assumption will be adjusted, and you NEVER really go back to normal.
What are some psychological impacts of long term conditions?
- People with one LTC are 2-3 times more likely to develop depression than the rest of the population
- People with three or more conditions are seven times more likely to have depression
- Having a M/H problem increases the risk of physical ill health
- Comorbid depression doubles the risk of CHD in adults and increases the risk of mortality by 50%
- Adults with both physical and M/H problems are much less likely to be in employment
- People with mental health problems such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder die, on average, 16–25 years younger than the general population
What is the self-regulatory model?
describes the processes of adaptation internally in someone when they experience a discontinuity in their physical sense (symptoms).
The first question is: what is this? This is processed both cognitively and emotionally. Decisions will have emotional responses.
What is concrete and abstract in the self-regulatory model?
Concrete are the implicit things that we have absorbed from the world around us.
Abstract are the explicit things that we are told directly and have to consider.
What is the Kubler-Ross’s stage theory?
- Denial (often used as a psychological defence in an attempt to cushion the impact of the source of grief)
- Anger (Outbursts of anger in unrelated situations can occur)
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
What is the embedded nature of stage theory in western culture?
- Linear progression – gives a sense of conceptual order to a complex process
- Proving a degree of predictability & control
- An overwhelming cultural desire to “make sense” of the uncertain
- Developed at a time when limited literature on death & dying existed
What are the weakness of stage theories?
- Stages are prescriptive and place patients in a passive role
- They do not account for variability in response (e.g. “people deal with things differently”)
- Stages focus on emotional responses and neglect cognitions and behaviour
- Stages fail to consider social, environmental or cultural factors (e.g., a patient in a positive and supportive environment is likely to exhibit very different stages than those who are not)
The stages pathologise people who do not pass through stages
What is bereavement?
the situation of a person who has recently experienced the loss of someone significant in his or her life through that person’s death
- BEREAVEMENT IS CULTURALLY DEFINED – it defines what people do, and what is done affects feelings
What is the dual process model of coping with bereavement?
Detachment should not be the objective in bereavement. It is a sense of continued presence, but in a BALANCED way. For a long time, the process of bereavement consists of moments of grief and moments of living
What can the duration of severity of a person’s grief depend on?
- How attached they were to the deceased person
- The circumstances of death and the situation of loss
- How much time they had to work through anticipatory mourning
What makes the worsening of mental health by chronic grief more likely?
- The death was sudden or unexpected
- The deceased was a child
- There was a high level of dependency in the relationship
- The bereaved person has a history of psychological problems, poor support and additional stress
