Not everyone is able to cope with grief well and begin rebuilding a life. Sometimes the feelings of hurt, loneliness, and guilt are so overwhelming that they become the focus of the survivor’s life to such 520 CHAPTER 13an extent that there is never any closure and the grief continues to interfere indefinitely with one’s […]

Who were the investigators and what was the aim of the study? Bonanno and colleagues (2005) noted that grief following the loss of a loved one often tends to be denied. However, research evidence related to positive benefits of resolving grief is largely lacking. Thus, whether unresolved grief is "bad" remains an open issue. Likewise, […]

Thus far, we have considered the behaviors people show when they are dealing with grief. We have also seen that these behaviors change over time. How does this happen? How can we explain the grieving process? Numerous theories have been proposed to acc­ount for the grieving process, such as general life event theories, psychodynamic theories, […]

The feelings experienced during grieving are intense, which not only makes it difficult to cope but can also make a person question her or his own reactions. The feelings involved usually include sad­ness, denial, anger, loneliness, and guilt. A summary of these feelings is presented in the following list (Vickio, Cavanaugh, & Attig, 1990). Take […]

LEARNING OBJECTIVES • How do people experience the grief process? • What feelings do grieving people have? • What is the difference between normal and prolonged grief? • How do adults of different ages deal with loss? A fter 67 years of marriage, Bertha recently lost her husband. At 90, Bertha knew that neither she […]

As has been clearly shown in this section and earlier in the chapter, decisions relating to the end of life raise complex legal, political, and ethical issues. In most jurisdictions, for example, euthanasia is legal only when a person has made known his or her wishes concerning medical intervention. Even a person’s preference for hospice […]

As we have seen, most people would like to die at home among family and friends. An important barrier to this choice is the availability of support systems when the person has a terminal disease. Most people believe that they have no choice but to go to a hospital or nursing home. However, another alternative […]

When given the chance, many adults would like to discuss a variety of issues, collectively called end-of-life issues: management of the final phase of life, after-death disposition of their body and memo­rial services, and distribution of assets (Green, 2008; Kleespies, 2004). How these issues are confronted represents a significant generational shift (Green, 2008). Parents and […]

LEARNING OBJECTIVES • What is a personal final scenario? • What are hospices, and what options do they provide? • How do people make their end-of-life intentions known? J ean is a 72-year-old woman who was recently diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. She has vivid memories of her father dying a long, protracted death in […]

We have seen that how people view death varies with age. In the process, we encountered the notion of feeling anxious about death. Death anxiety is tough to pin down; indeed, it is the ethereal nature of death, rather than something about it in particu­lar, that usually makes us feel so uncomfortable. We cannot put […]