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Recommended: Grief processes essay
Blessed are those who mourn: for they shall be comforted.
~ Matthew 5:4
The death of a loved one is an experience that many people experience at some point in their life. The realization of death will cause a person to become an emotional rollercoaster. The emotion of grief can be a confusing state of being that makes a person feel lost and discombobulated. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary the term grief is used interchangeably with bereavement which is the state of losing a loved one and grief is the emotional response to the loss of someone that the bereaved has a personal bond to. Grieving the loss of a child can stretch back as far as the beginning of time, for example, the Bible speaks of many that lost a child, even Mary watched her son Jesus die.
Through this information we know that death is a common experience and the death of a child is not excluded in the equation. Although there is a lot of research about grief and how a person copes with it they all convert back to the five stages of grief. This is the most popular model to describe the grief process is the Kübler-Ross model, or simply the five stages of grief which was introduced in 1969 by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book, On Death and Dying. The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This research will explain process of the parents affected by the death of a child and how to counsel someone while grieving a child.
Five Stages Of Grief
The first stage of Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief is denial. In this stage, the bereaved refuses to accept that a loved one has passed away. This stage is controlled by the heart, rather than mind. Meaning although the evidence has been placed before the bereaved, the realization ...
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...grieves in a healthy manner.
Conclusion
Throughout this paper, the grieving process has been examined and expound upon to try and achieve a greater perception on helping a person when the grief is too hardtop bear. Although death is a tragic occurrence, it is also a frequent occurrence. The effects of losing a love one can be detrimental and very hard to get over. Losing a child can have an even greater effect because it a special bond is broken when a child passes away. Recovering from a loss of this magnitude can be even almost unbearable. The death of a child can leave a parent wondering where to go from this point and how to continue life. Although everyone grieves differently, there are some commonalities that can be witnesses and helping a person through the rough stages of grief is very important aspect of how they will spend the rest of their life.
Death and Grieving Imagine that the person you love most in the world dies. How would you cope with the loss? Death and grieving is an agonizing and inevitable part of life. No one is immune from death’s insidious and frigid grip. Individuals vary in their emotional reactions to loss.
What is Grief? Merriam-Webster ‘s online dictionary defines grief as, “deep sadness caused by someone’s death; a deep sadness; and/or a trouble or annoyance”(n.d.). This term may have a different way of impacting one’s life depending on geographical location; culture plays an important role in how those that experiences a loss or hardship, cope with grief. After further research, a closer look will be taken at the five stages associated with grief and loss, how Hindu and Islamic Muslim culture deal with death, and how cultural differences may impact the stages of grief.
Individually, everyone has their own methods of dealing with situations and emotions regardless of any positive or negative connotation affixed to them. One prime example of this comes with grief. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying” suggests that there are five stages of mourning and grief that are universal and, at one point or another, experienced by people from all walks of life. These stages, in no particular order, are as follows: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance. Each individual person works through these stages in different orders for varying levels of time and intensity, but most if not all are necessary to “move on.” In order for positive change to occur following a loss, one must come to terms with not only the event but also themselves.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross developed a theory based on what she perceived to be the stages of acceptance of death. Her theory has been taken further by psychologists and therapists to explain the stages of grief in general. Kubler-Ross identified five stages: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, as happening in that order. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet exhibits all five stages of grief, we can assume in relation to the recent death of his father, but not necessarily in this order, and in fact the five seem to overlap in many parts of the play.
In the article the authors stress the difficulties that disabled people run into when attempting to deal with grief. They find it critical that caregivers realize that people with disabilities very well may grasp the notion of death, and the various changes that loss may bring. Also brought up is the fact that the disabled population may not show the normal symptoms of grieving, or any symptoms at all. They stress the importance of awareness of these differences in spite of limited communication which in turn can lead to more problems with the grieving individual.
Although death is a major part of life, accepting it can be a difficult thing to do. Dr. Elizabeth Kubler - Ross, an American psychiatrist and psychologist, help discover the series of stages people go through before the reach their death point. These series of stages were known as the Kubler - Ross model. This model was formed by a study on many patients from hospice, the hospice workers and the hospice patients families. These five stages include the feeling of Denial, Ange...
According to Dictionary.com, grief is defined as “keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.” Grief, to many, is a terrible thing and it can materially affect a person and change their personality. What people don’t remember after enduring a tragedy, is that healing happens
Adolescence is described as the period between childhood and adulthood. Loss of a sibling during teenage years intensifies matters related to the usual challenges of adolescence. Teenagers are capable of understanding death the way adults do, however their ways of grieving is related to both adults and children. Adolescents suffer more in the event of loss of a sibling than children do, because teens have developed their way of thinking.
Upon receiving the news that a loved one had died, those left to mourn, called survivors, often find themselves entangled in a complex web of emotions and reactions. The death of a loved one can be a frightening, overwhelming, and painful experience and the physical, psychological, and social effects of loss are articulated through the practice of grief. Grief has been known to be experienced in five stages called the Five Stages of Grief where each phase of the grieving process will go from initial denial to the slow healing of acceptance. However, the devastating aftermath of a loss of a loved one, coupled with the suffering experienced through the five stages of grief can cause the survivor to commit suicide themselves.
When we encounter the death of a loved one, it’s hard to understand and realized that the person is gone. According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross, individuals enter different stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and
The stages of death are known to be a process of mourning that is experienced by individuals from all phases of life. This mourning ensues from an individual’s own death or the death of a loved one. Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross dedicated much of her career to studying this dying process and in turn created the five stages of death. The five stages are; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These stages may not occur in sequence and sometimes may intersect with one another (Axelrod, 2006). The reality of death many times causes a feeling of denial; this is known as the first stage. In this stage, people have many emotions and have a tendency to hide from reality. This reaction is momentary, but should not be rushed. The patient or loved one needs time to adjust to the awaiting death. This adjustment helps bring them through to the next stage; anger. Anger is a common feeling and many times routes from a feeling of not being ready. This emotion may be directed toward God, strangers, friends, family or even healthcare professionals (Purcell, 2006). In some cases, it can be targeted...
When first receiving news about the death of a loved one, the normal reaction is shock and denial. No one wants to hear that their father, grandmother, or uncle had just died, and according to Kübler-Ross, one way people cope with grief and loss of a loved one is denial. This means that a person may try and hide from the facts and block out what others are trying to say. That person might deny the reality of the situation and have thoughts like, “He not dead, that’s impossible. He was doing fine just yesterday” or “This must be some kind of mistake.” Denial is a defense mechanism that buffers the immediate shock that comes after hearing such news. It is difficult for the person to accept the fact that someone dear to them is no longer with them, so they rebuke the truth and instead choose to avoid any type of encounter that forces them to face the truth and reality. This even extends to avoiding thinking about the situation. Gibran sta...
People cope with the loss of a loved one in many ways. For some, the experience may lead to personal growth, even though it is a difficult and trying time. There is no right way of coping with death. The way a person grieves depends on the personality of that person and the relationship with the person who has died. How a person copes with grief is affected by the person's cultural and religious background, coping skills, mental history, support systems, and the person's social and financial status.
Grief can be defined as the natural reaction to loss. Grief is both a universal and personal experience (Mayo Clinic, 2014). Individual experiences of grief vary and are influenced by the nature of the loss (Mayo Clinic, 2014). There are multiple different theories that have attempted to explain the complex process of grief and loss. Theorists such as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, William Worden and John Bowbly explain in their theories how they believe an individual deals with the grieving process. In this essay, I will be focusing on William Worden’s theory and will be discussing the process for a child aged nine to eleven.
Losing a child is one of the most traumatic events a person can ever experience. This life changing experience is very difficult for parents to cope with. Grief is something we all experience as human beings; we will all lose someone that we love in our lifetime. We all go through the five stages of grief denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and last being acceptance (Bolden, 2007). However, this is arguably not the case for parents who experience the death of a child. Although, parents who have experienced...