Psychology
Bereavement Process Across the Life Span and Five Stages of Dying
Introduction
Death is an inevitable process of an organism’s life cycle particularly among humans. However, in the human life cycle dying is just one facet of experience as the living left behind by the decease also undergoes a process of bereavement encompassing grief and other emotional manifestation caused by death. In this discussion, bereavement process and its difference with the process of dying across the life span. In addition, the discussion also focuses on identifying the difference between the two concepts by applying the four-component model of the grieving process in childhood.
Dying and Bereavement
The difference between the process of dying and the process of bereavement can be observed on how people deal with the situation. The bereavement processes involves a sense of loss or grief followed by mourning and lastly moving on (GVSL, 2012), while Kubler-Ross’s model of dying involves denial and isolation, followed by anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance (Axelrod, 2016). However, bereavement also encompasses process of grief and coping that happens gradually, which depending on the life span could take the entire process a longer period as compared to the process of dying. At the time when death occurs in the life of a child, the bereavement process becomes a fundamental aspect towards full emotional recovery. Children in particular are vulnerable to psychological implications caused by occurrence of death in the family, and such vulnerability causes risk factors such as depression and behavioral shift exacerbated by the lack of comfort and support from survivors who are also undergoing the process of bereavement (Osterweis, Solomon, and Green, 1984). When it comes to the context of loss, children tends to demonstrate behavioral changes that conveys their sense of separation from the person who passed away such as crying, restless searching, high anxiety, and irritability (Black, 1998).
Overtime, when the child reaches the recovery stage the representation of lost relationship tends to shift to other aspects of life. A child who just undergone the process of bereavement would react anxiously on situations involving loss of objects. For example, a child might become angry and anxious when finding out that the favorite toy has gone missing. The child can attribute the missing toy as a manifestation of the lost relationship because the child’s sense of attachment on various aspects of life can be heightened by the experience of loss. In this situation involving bereavement, the role of coping and emotional regulation becomes an important strategy in dealing with grief. This is because emotional regulation and coping provides the psychological support aimed to remove the child from the grieving process through therapy and other means of intervention. Similarly, Kubler-Ross, five stage of dying provides a manifestation of how the sense of death and loss are being dealt with. The first stage denial and isolation is the first reaction as a form of defense mechanism that hides people from the reality of death. The second stage is anger, which is a common emotional response to loss aimed at anything that is perceived to be instrumental to the prevention or perpetuation of death. The third stage is bargaining, which is a manifestation of feeling of helplessness in which the person experiencing it seeks to regain control or remedy that could turn the situation around. Next is depression in which the person undergoing the stages of dying mourns predominantly depicting sadness and regret, which can be eased by simply having an emotional support mechanism such as surviving friends and family members supporting the mourning individual. The last stage is acceptance, which involves the person finally accepting the realities of the loss of loved-one and chooses to move on with their lives.
Conclusion
Bereavement and the process of dying is almost the same in context, but the latter provides a pattern that generally manifests among individuals who just experienced a sense of loss. Death is part of the cycle of life, but to understand how the survivors feel by reflecting on the process of bereavement is relatively important in the process of coping and recovery. Although the experience is different in every individual, the most important role of the process is to prepare the support group in creating appropriate intervention to reduce the emotional and psychological impact of the loss.
References
Axelrod, J. (2006). The 5 Stages of Loss & Grief | Psych Central. Psych Central. Retrieved 31 May 2016, from http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/
Black, D. (1998). Bereavement in childhood. BMJ, 21(316), 931–933. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1112822/
GVSL,. (2012). New York City Grief and Bereavement Counseling and Therapy. Gvsl.org. Retrieved 31 May 2016, from http://www.gvsl.org/process.html
Osterweis, M., Solomon, F., & Green, M. (1984). Bereavement: Reactions, Consequences, and Care(1st ed.). Washington: National Academies Press.
