Exam 3 (Grief Counseling & Grief Therapy Ch. 8) Flashcards
Specific factors that affect the mourning process & influence the degree of family disruption
- stages in the family life cycle
- roles played by the deceased
- power, affection, and communication patterns
- sociocultural factors
Murray Bowen, a well-known family therapist, says that knowledge of these three things is important for anyone who attempts to help a family before, during, or after a death
1) total family configuration
2) functioning position of dying person in family
3) overall level of life adaptation
The concept of family therapy is based on the belief that the family is
an interactional unit in which all members influence each other
It is important to look at a family systems approach because
unresolved grief may not only serve as a key factor in family pathology but contribute to pathological relationships across the generations.
If openly expressed feelings are not tolerated in the family this may lead to…
various types of acting out behavior
Families that cope most effectively are…
open in their discussions about the deceased
closed families not only lack the freedom of open discussion, but also…
encourage other family members to remain quiet
functional families are more likely to process feelings about the death including
admitting to, and accepting feelings of vulnerability.
In the assessment of grief and family systems, at least three main areas need to be considered..
1) Functional position or role the deceased played in the family
2) The emotional integration of the family
3) how families facilitate or hinder emotional expression
______ sees the family unit as having stasis and calm when each member is functioning at reasonable efficiency.
Bowen
Psychiatrist ______ ______ believes that grief work confined to an individual and the therapist may deaden the relational possibilities for the individual and his or her family
Norman Paul
In more functional families, the father was able to…
express grief openly instead of hiding his feelings or praising his son for not crying at the funeral
essential tasks for families making an adaptation to the loss..
- recognition of the loss & acknowledgement of unique grief experiences of each member
- family must reorganize roles
- family must reinvest in “new” family while maintaining a sense of connection w/ deceased.
- meaning making
Research has shown that families who cope the best after the death of a family member are more cohesive, and are more able to:
- tolerate individual differences among family members
- have more open communication
- find more support from within the family as well as outside the family
- cope more actively with problems
Surviving children frequently become the focus of unconscious maneuvers including
- substitute for the lost child
- suppressing the facts surrounding the loss
- becoming overlooked
- may not know how to share the death and to what extent
Five types of guilt that bereaved parents may experience
- cultural guilt
- casual guilt
- moral guilt
- survival guilt
- recovery guilt
Cultural guilt
Society expects us to take care of our children
Casual guilt
When death comes from an inherited disorder
Moral guilt
When the parents feel the death was caused by some infraction on their part
Survivor guilt
Why did my child die and not me?
Recovery guilt
When parents move on from the grief and want to get on with their lives
Bereaved fathers are faced with several double binds as they struggle to cope with their child’s death:
- given little social support
- simultaneously confronted with the notions that grief is best handled through expressiveness; and that they need to control such expressions of grief
Sexual activity may be sought out by some couples shortly after the death of a child. For these couples sexual intimacy serves as
A reaffirmation of life and supports their strong need to be close to each other and take care of each other
Bereaved parents face two issues
- Learning to live without the child
- internalizing an inner representation of the child that brings comfort
Various tasks of mourning for bereaved parents
- the reality of the loss
- processing strong feelings
- finding some kind of meaning and some appropriate memorialization
- The same ambivalence and multiple representations that were part of the living relationships with the child are part of the search for equilibrium when the child dies
A key component in children’s grief
Their emotional reaction to separation
Three things children need after the death of a parent
Support, nurturance, and continuity
Needs of bereaved children (7 things)
- they will be cared for
- they did not cause the death
- clear information about the death
- to feel important and involved
- continued routine activity
- someone to listen to their questions
- ways to remember the dead person
The mental health practitioner needs to be aware of several things when dealing with children who have lost parents
- children do mourn
- The loss of a parent through death is obviously a trauma but does not necessarily lead to arrested development
- children between the ages of five and seven years are a particularly vulnerable group
- the work of mourning may not end in the same way for a child as it does for an adult
According to Bowen, why do many dyadic relationships become triangulated after a death?
In order to remove some of the anxiety or pressure of a dyadic relationship
Problems that can arise with families after a death
- the issue of alliances
- making someone a scapegoat
- making meaning out of the loss
- incomplete mourning
Operational mourning
Inducing the mourning response by directly asking one family member about reactions to actual losses the family has sustained.
Widowhood affects ____ out of ___ women
3 out of 4
Features of grief in the elderly
- interdependence
- multiple losses
- personal death awareness
- loneliness
- role adjustment
- support groups
- touch
- reminiscing
- discussing relocation
- skill building
Elderly men and women who were most willing to attend support groups were…
- those whose main confidant was less available than previously
- those with more depression and less life satisfaction
- those who perceived they were not coping well
- also more willingness In those between ages 50-69
Reminiscing is sometimes called
Life review
Reminiscing
Naturally occurring process that brings the person to a progressive return to consciousness of past experiences.
It is generally assumed that reminiscing serves as an ____________ function for the aging person and not the sign of intellectual decline.
Adaptational
Reminiscing contributes to the maintenance of
Identity
Two points emphasized at the end of ch. 8
- not everyone in a family will be working on the same tasks of mourning at the same time
- individual members of a family will sometimes be reluctant to come in for counseling with the entire group
Postponed mourning in the family of origin impedes one from
Experiencing emotional loss and separation within the current family
Wolfenstein says children don’t mourn until they are…
Adolescents
Furman says children can mourn as early as
3 years of age
Bowlby believes children can mourn at
6 months old
Bowlby says that children do mourn, but…
We cannot use an adult model for children’s grief
