Funeral Service Psychology & Counseling Glossary Flashcards
the individual’s ability to adjust to the psychological and emotional changes brought on by a stressful event such as the death of a significant other.
Adaptation
external expression of emotion.
Affect
those appropriate and helpful acts of counseling that come after the funeral.
Aftercare (post-funeral counseling)
the intentional infliction of physical or psychological harm on another.
Aggression
the state of estrangement an individual feels in social settings that are viewed as foreign, unpredictable or unacceptable.
Alienation
providing a choice of services and merchandise available as families make a selection and complete funeral arrangements, formulating different actions in adjusting to a crisis.
Alternatives
blame directed towards another person.
Anger
grief where mourning customs are unclear due to an inappropriate death and the absence of prior bereavement experience.
Anomic grief
grief in anticipation of death or loss
Anticipatory grief
an emotion characterized by a vague fear or premonition that something undesirable is going to happen.
Anxiety
funeral director consulting with the family from the time the death occurs until the final disposition.
At-need counseling
the tendency to make strong affectional bonds with others coming from the need for security and safety.
Attachment (Bowlby)
giving undivided attention by means of verbal and non-verbal behavior. (listening)
Attending
a learned tendency to respond to people, objects, or institutions in a positive or negative way.
Attitude
the act or event of separation or loss that results in the experience of grief.
Bereavement
excessive in duration and never coming to a satisfactory conclusion.
Chronic grief
non-directive method of counseling which stresses the inherent worth of the client and the natural capacity for growth and health.
Client centered counseling (Rogers) - (person centered counseling)
from the Latin, “to know;” the study of the origins and consequences of thoughts, memories, beliefs, perceptions, explanations, and other mental processes.
Cognitive psychology
a general term for the exchange of information, feelings, thoughts and acts between two or more people, including both verbal and non-verbal aspects of this interchange.
Communication
grief that interferes with normal life functions without progressing towards resolution.
Complicated (abnormal, unresolved) grief
the necessary quality of a counselor being in touch with reality and other’s perception of oneself.
Congruence (Rogers)
characteristic ways of responding to stress.
Coping
the individual seeking assistance or guidance.
Counselee
advice, especially that given as a result of consultation.
Counseling (Webster)
any time someone helps someone else with a problem.
Counseling (Jackson)
good communication within and between men; or, good (free) communication within or between men is always therapeutic.
Counseling (Rogers)
a therapeutic experience for reasonably healthy persons. A counselor’s clients are encouraged to seek assistance before they develop serious neurotic, psychotic, or characterological disorders.
Counseling (Ohlsen)
the individual providing assistance and guidance.
Counselor
a highly emotional temporary state in which an individual’s feelings of anxiety, grief, confusion or pain impair his or her ability to act.
Crisis
interventions which help individuals in a crisis situation.
Crisis counseling
a learned emotional response to death-related phenomenon which is characterized by extreme apprehension.
Death anxiety
an often unconscious mental process used to defend against anxiety.
Defense mechanisms
inhibited, suppressed or postponed response to a loss.
Delayed grief (Worden)
the defense mechanism by which a person is unable or refuses to see things as they are because such facts are threatening to the self.
Denial
counselor takes an active speaking role, asking questions, suggesting courses of action.
Directive counseling
treating members of groups differently in circumstances where their rights or treatment should be identical.
Discrimination
redirecting feelings toward a person or object other than one who caused the feelings originally.
Displacement
feelings such as happiness, anger or grief, created by brain patterns accompanied by bodily changes.
Emotion(s)
the ability to perceive another’s experience and communicate that perception back to the person.
Empathy (Wolfelt)
(right to die) an act or practice of allowing or causing the death of persons suffering from a life-limiting condition.
Euthanasia
reactions that are excessive and disabling.
Exaggerated grief (Worden)
to assist the understanding of situations and options concerning the circumstances.
Facilitate
strong emotion marked by such reactions as alarm, dread or disquiet.
Fear
centering a client’s thinking and feelings on the situation causing a problem.
Focusing
the study of human behavior as related to funeral service.
Funeral service psychology
the ability to present oneself sincerely.
Genuineness (Wolfelt)
an emotion or set of emotions due to loss
Grief
helping people facilitate grief to a healthy resolution.
Grief counseling
a set of symptoms associated with loss.
Grief syndrome (Lindemann)
specialized techniques which are used to help people with complicated grief reactions.
Grief therapy (Worden)
a process occurring with losses aimed at loosening the attachment to that which has been lost for appropriate reinvestment.
Griefwork (Lindemann)
support or support system provided to the counselee who is seeking an alternative adjustment to problems.
Guidance
blame directed toward one’s self based on real or unreal conditions.
Guilt
the killing of one human being by another.
Homicide
a philosophy of care used in treating the terminally ill.
Hospice
counseling in which a counselor shares a body of special information with a counselee.
Informational counseling
experiencing symptoms and behaviors which cause difficulty but not attributing them to the loss.
Masked grief (Worden)
any event, person or object that lessens the degree of pain in grief.
MItigation
outward expression of grief.
Mourning
that which is expressed by posture, facial expression, actions, physical behavior.
Non-verbal communication
choice of actions provided through counseling as a means of solving the counselee’s problem.
Option
a strong emotion characterized by sudden and extreme fear.
Panic
expressing a thought or idea in an alternate and sometimes shortened form.
Paraphrasing
Another term for Client-centered counseling
Person centered counseling (Rogers)
Another term for aftercare
Post-funeral counseling
negative attitude towards others based on their gender, religion, race, or membership in a particular group.
Prejudice
counseling which occurs before a death.
Pre-need counseling
attribution of one’s unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or behaviors to someone else.
Projection
the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
Psychology
intervention with people whose needs are so specific that usually they can only be met by specially trained physicians or psychologists. The practitioners in this field need special training because they often work with deeper levels of consciousness.
Psychotherapy (Jackson)
a relation of harmony established in any human interaction.
Rapport
supplying a logical, acceptable reason rather than the real reason for an action.
Rationalization
returning to more familiar and often more primitive modes of coping.
Regression
blocking of threatening material from consciousness.
Repression
the ability to communicate the belief that everyone possesses the capacity and right to choose alternatives and make decisions.
Respect (Wolfelt)
Compulsive need to go after and retrieve that which has been lost.
Searching
blame that is perceived to be directed toward one’s self by others.
Shame
the reaction of the body to an event often experienced emotionally as a sudden, violent and upsetting disturbance.
Shock
related to specific situations in life that may created crises and produce human pain and suffering.
Situational Counseling
making judgments about ourselves through comparison with others.
Social comparison
occurs when an individual’s performance improves because of the presence of others.
Social facilitation
the mental and physical condition that occurs when a person must adjust or adapt to the environment.
Stress
any event capable of producing physical or emotional stress.
Stressor
redirection of emotion to culturally or socially useful purposes.
Sublimation
the sudden and unexpected death of an apparently healthy infant, which remains unexplained after a complete autopsy and a review of the circumstances around the death.
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS or crib death)
a deliberate and voluntary act of taking one’s own life.
Suicide
a brief review of points covered in a portion of the counseling session.
Summary
a conscious postponement of addressing anxieties and concerns.
Suppression
sincere feelings for the person who is trying to adjust to a serious loss.
Sympathy
the study of death, dying, bereavement, and mourning.
Thanatology
an irrational, exaggerated fear of death.
Thanatophobia
the region of the mind that is beyond awareness especially impulses and desires not directly known to a person.
Unconscious
spoken, oral communication.
Verbal communication
the ability to be considerate and friendly as demonstrated by both verbal and non-verbal behaviors.
Warmth and caring (Wolfelt)
