Death And Grief

A Guide For Clergy

Alan D. Wolfelt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317739395
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Clergy are in a natural position to help people who experience a variety of losses, including death, divorce, moves, and develop-mental transitions. Historically, clergy have been involved as supporters of the bereaved, yet many clergy say that their educa-tion lacked substantive teachings in this area of caring. This book is a response to this apparent need. While directed at clergy, anyone involved in this area of caregiving will find the contents of value.

1

SEMANTIC DISTINCTIONS IN TERMINOLOGY

Could you define the terms bereavement, grief, and mourning?

An excellent starting point in attempting to provide a framework for the increased understanding of one’s helping role is to simply make some semantic distinctions in these commonly used terms. However, we should acknowledge that words are inadequate in conveying the magnitude of these experiences.

Bereavement is a state caused by loss such as death. Numerous types of losses can bring about a state of bereavement.

Grief is an emotional suffering caused by death or another form of bereavement. Grief involves a sequence of thoughts and feelings that follow the loss and accompany mourning. Grief is a process and as a result, is not a specific emotion like fear or sadness, but indeed is a constellation of a variety of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Grief is the internal meaning given to the external event.

Mourning is the outward expression of grief and bereavement. The specific ways in which people mourn are influenced by the customs of their culture. The mourning behavior exhibited may or may not be in agreement with true feelings of the bereaved; however, they may incur disapproval if they do not follow the prescribed social customs. Another way of defining mourning is to state that it is “grief gone public” or “sharing one’s grief outside of oneself.”

Other related terms of which the caregiver should be aware are as follows:

Anticipatory Grief is most often used to describe grief that is expressed in advance of a loss when the loss is perceived as inevitable (see pages 131-133).

Acute Griej is the intense grief which immediately follows the loss.

Grief Work is the activity(s) associated with thinking through the loss, facing its reality, expressing the feelings and emotions experienced, and becoming reinvolved with life. The work of grief coincides with what has been termed the tasks of mourning.

Other significant terminology that aids in understanding essential concepts will be noted in the pages ahead.

Now that the preceding terms have been defined in a more formal sense, lets take a moment to acknowledge that grief is a much more personal experience than their words describe. For example, grief is—waking up in the middle of the night and reaching out to touch someone who is no longer there. Grief is—hearing that special song, seeing that special place, and longing for that special person. And yes, grief is a mixture of adjustments, fears and uncertainties that confront life in its forward progress and make it difficult to reconcile and redirect the energies of life, of living, and of loving.

So grief is much more than words alone. Grief is real and it does not simply go away. Experiencing these complex emotions of grief is often movement through an unknown territory that is embraced by an overwhelming sense of pain and loss. And yet, in helping people move toward their grief, and experience it, one has the opportunity to be a catlyst for healing.

2

SOCIAL INFLUENCES AND GRIEF

What is your perception of the social influences that relate to the expression of grief in our culture?

For many years the belief has been that human behavior is always a function of two sets of conditions, those involving the person and those involving the situation in which the person is living. As we observe grief in a social context today, it seems that our society frequently gives the message to grieving persons that their loss is not a matter of general concern. The grieving person is supposed to be “strong” and “brave” even when it is unhealthy to repress normal suffering and pain. The unfortunate consequence is that the grieving person is often left to his or her own resources at the very time those resources are the most depleted.

In our efforts to understand the individuals experience with grief, we must acknowledge that the social environment can either help or hinder the process. In this writer’s clinical experience, negative social influences can, and frequently do, lead to a complicated journey through ones’s grief.

Perhaps you have heard grief described as the emotions that heal themselves. While this may have been true at some point in history, we now realize that the majority of people need some supportive social context for healing to occur. Grievers need the opportunity to share their grief outside of themselves in a caring environment.

The unfortunate reality is that many grievers do not give themselves permission, or receive permission from others, to grieve, to express their many conflicting thoughts and feelings. We live in a society that often encourages the repression of the emotions of grief, as opposed to the expression. The result is that many people either grieve in isolation, or attempt to run away from their grief through various means.

During ancient times, stoic philosophers encouraged their followers not to mourn, believing that self control was the appropriate response to sorrow. Still today, well intentioned, but uninformed people carry on this long held tradition. A vital task of the helper is to encourage and support the outward expression of grief. The grieving person moves toward reconciling self to the loss when he or she can attend to his or her emotional experiences, accepting them as a result of the privilege of having been capable of loving another person. A renewed sense of well being has the opportunity to evolve as caring people accept the grievers for who they are, as they are, where they are. Grief is a time for the expression of normal emotions.

Does this lack of a supportive social context you have described influence people’s perception of how long grief should last?

Absolutely and without a doubt. One of the reasons for many people’s preoccupation with the very question; “How long does grief last?” often relates to society’s impatience with grief. Shortly after the funeral the grieving person is expected to “be back to normal.” Persons who continue to express grief outwardly are often viewed as “weak,” “crazy,” or “self-pitying.” The common message is “shape up and get on with your life.” Grief is something to be overcome rather than experienced.

The result of these kinds of messages is to encourage the repression of the griever’s thoughts and feelings. Refusing to allow tears, suffering in silence, and “being strong,” are thought to be admirable behaviors. An unresponsive society can result in a heightened sense of isolation and aloneness in the grieving person.

Many grieving people have internalized society’s message that grief should be done quietly and quickly. Returning to the routine of work shortly after the death of someone loved, the widow relates, “I’m fine,” in essence saying “I’m not mourning.” Friends, family, and co-workers relieved by her stance admire her apparent strength and refrain from talking with her about her loss. The bereaved person having an apparent absence of mourning tends to be more socially accepted by those around him or her.

However, this type of collaborative pretense surrounding grief does not meet the emotional needs of the bereaved person. Instead, she is likely to be further isolated with her grief, with the eventual onset of the “going crazy syndrome.” Attempting to mask and repress her feelings of grief, results in internal anxiety and confusion. The world outside of the person continues to go on in its usual way. With little, if any, tolerance for her own grief, combined with lack of social recognition and support, the woman begins to think her thoughts and feelings are abnormal and that she is in fact, “going crazy.” As a matter of fact, the most frequent initial presentation of grieving persons at our Center for Loss and Life Transition in Colorado is the statement, “I think I’m going crazy.”

The lack of expression of outward mourning has brought about the evolution of the “silent mourner.” Often, even those persons who want to be supportive cannot identify the mourner. The relegating of grief to behind closed doors reinforces the importance of being outreach oriented with ones helping efforts.

In summary, our society frequently fails to support the bereaved person, particularly during the lengthy transition period after the funeral. An emphasis on being rational and staying under control influences mourners to reintegrate into the social network and keep their tears, fears, and hurts to themselves. We must work to reverse this trend that fails to acknowledge the continuing need for support and understanding of the bereaved. My hope is that this text is a step toward allowing readers to better achieve this goal.

NOTES

3

INCREASED INTEREST IN BEREAVEMENT CARE

Clergy, as well as other caregivers, appear to have an increased interest in the area of bereavement care—why do you think this has occurred?

The recent increased interest in the area of bereavement care has been accompanied by a general increase in interest in a wide range of issues related to death and dying. In the past twenty-five years, the importance of learning from the experiences of loss in our lives has evolved in both the social sciences (psychology, sociology, and anthropology), and the biological sciences (medicine and biology). Thanatology, the study of death, dying and grief has become an interdisciplinary field. Each discipline brings a perspective that makes for a greater whole.

Religious institutions and the clergy have been involved with the bereaved throughout history. Interesting to note is that this relatively new found interest in death, dying, and grief for clergy and other caregivers, is really a resurgence of interest that has been present since the beginning of time. The book titled, The Art of Dying was first written in the time of ancient Rome.

This realization that not everything related to the care of the dying and the grieving is new, actually helps give us perspective on what we are doing today. For example, we can very easily observe that with the more recent popularization of the study of death or the onset of what Robert Kastenbaum has termed the “Death Awareness Movement” we have witnessed an almost superficial or fad-like interest in the topics of death, dying, and grief. Unfortunately, the very persons who often treat death with this fad-like interest are the ones who begin to prescribe to others how to die and how to grieve. In addition, a frequent discovery related to persons who evoke a superficial understanding of grief is that they have not encountered any personal experience with loss.

As to why the new found interest, we can look to a combination of factors. Many people, both lay and professional, have demonstrated an urge to learn more about something that has been avoided in years past. Our dissension of death in the not so distant past has been marred by euphemistic language, by isolation of the dying, and repression of the right and value of grieving. Currently, there is an awareness that a continued attitude of the denial of death will only serve to distance us more from life. An excellent rationale for more open, honest, approach to experiences of death and grief was provided by Octavio Paz, who wrote: “A civilization that denies death ends by denying life.”¹

Historical events of this century also have helped force us to confront our own mortality—two world wars, the atomic bomb, a prolonged war in Vietnam, assassination of political leaders, international terrorism, and the potential of nuclear holocaust. These events have made maintaining a facade of indifference to the realities of death and grief more difficult. The threat of nuclear war alone should provide a catalyst for discussion of a wide range of topics related to thanatology.

Clearly, our present upsurge in interest in death, dying, and grief is one of transition. Death, dying, and bereavement have become more acceptable topics for public discussion. Published in 1959, Herman Feifel’s book, The Meaning of Death², brought together a number of authors from a variety of disciplines whose writings encompassed theoretical approaches, cultural and religious concepts, developmental and attitudinal studies, and clinical aspects of death. Beginning with Fiefel’s text, death began to be accepted as an area of investigation to be explored by scholars, clinical practitioners, and the lay public.

In 1969, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross authored, On Death and Dying³, which further stimulated the lay public’s interest in learning more about death and dying. This text introduced the concept of stages in the dying process and has sold well over a million copies.

The lay public’s willingness, if not eagerness to discuss death, became evident in a 1970 Psychology Today survey on the topic that resulted in over thirty thousand responses. This was more responses than the magazine had ever received to any prior surveys.

The 1970s and 80s have seen hundreds of articles and texts published on the general topics of dying, death, and grief, as well as more specialized topics such as children and death, suicide, the hospice movement, and the funeral industry. In respons...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Contents
• List of Figures
• 1 Semantic Distinctions in Terminology
• 2 Social Influences and Grief
• 3 Increased Interest in Bereavement Care
• 4 Broader Framework for Loss
• 5 Attachment Influences on Grief
• 6 Uniqueness of Grief Response
• 7 Overview of Normal Experience of Grief
• 8 Additional Significant Features of Grief
• 9 Reconciliation Needs or Tasks of Mourning
• 10 Morbidity and Mortality
• 11 Complicated Grief
• 12 Duration of Grief
• 13 Anniversary Reactions
• 14 Grief Avoidance Response Styles
• 15 Respecting Denial
• 16 Viewing the Body of the Deceased
• 17 Function of Tears
• 18 Bereavement Overload
• 19 Anticipatory Grief
• 20 Use of Medication
• 21 Faith and the Expression of Grief
• 22 Model for Assessment of the Mourner
• 23 Funeral Ritual and Grief
• 24 Children and Grief
• 25 Helping Qualities of the Bereavement Caregiver
• 26 Helping Tasks of the Caregiver
• 27 Caring for the Caregiver
• 28 A Final Word
• Support Groups And Organizations
• Index
• About The Author
• Workshop Presentations