Is it True That "There are no Right or Wrong Ways to Grieve"?

This article explores some of the implications of the often-heard saying that, "There are no right or wrong ways to grieve." In order to do so, this article offers some reflections on the key phrases that are involved implicitly or explicitly in this advice: loss, bereavement, grief, grieving, and mourning. On that basis, this article examines a series of claims: Are there actually no right ways to grieve?; Is there no single right way to grieve?; Are there no wrong ways to grieve? These analyses are enriched by incorporating some of the new understandings of loss, grief, and mourning that have emerged in the professional literature in recent years from research and scholarship. The conclusion offers lessons that should be learned and that should not be learned from the advice that, "There are no right or wrong ways to grieve".

Bereavement Counsellors' Experiences Supporting the Families of Deceased Children Within a German Bereavement Network- A Qualitative Interview Study.

Background: The "Bereavement Network Lower Saxony" (BNLS) provides professional bereavement support to families grieving for a child. The present study aimed at exploring the experiences of BNLS bereavement counsellors in providing bereavement support to affected families. Methods: 12 semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with bereavement counsellors of the BNLS between June and August 2022. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed using qualitative content analysis, according to Mayring (2010). Results: Bereavement counsellors perceived that grief could be experienced very differently, and thus bereavement support must always be based on the individual needs and resources of bereaved family members. Bereavement counsellors appreciated exchange within the network and supervision to cope with emotional load that arises from compassion for those affected. Conclusions: Bereavement support within a network structure may improve the accessibility of individual support and enable exchange between counsellors, thus ensuring better bereavement support. Public outreach and strategic partnerships with clinics may amplify the positive impact of this support service.

Disenfranchised Grief: Which Grieving Rules Do German Mid-adolescents Hold?

Every society adheres to grieving rules that govern how people experience loss and grief. These are rarely communicated explicitly, which can lead to insecurities in dealing with one's own grief and the grief of others. This is particularly true for adolescents. Based on Doka's concept of disenfranchised grief, this study explores the grieving rules of mid-adolescents. Cross-sectional data collection took place in November and December 2022 at six secondary schools in Germany. A total of 226 adolescents predominantly aged between 14 and 16 years completed the questionnaire. The analysis of the data shows that in some respects, mid-adolescents have similar grieving rules as adults. However, they are more inclusive when it comes to losses of ex-partners, pets and people with intellectual disabilities. Possible sources of (self-)disenfranchisement are parasocial relationships and the duration of grief. Open communication about grieving rules is suggested to prevent possible disenfranchisement.

Exploring how family carers of a person with dementia manage pre-death grief: A mixed methods study.

OBJECTIVES: Many family carers of a person with dementia experience pre-death grief. We aimed to identify strategies that help carers manage pre-death grief. We hypothesised that emotion and problem focussed styles would be associated with lower, and dysfunctional coping with higher grief intensity. METHODS: Mixed methods observational study using structured and semi-structured interviews with 150 family carers of people with dementia living at home or in a care home. Most participants were female (77%), caring for a parent (48%) or partner/spouse (47%) with mild (25%), moderate (43%) or severe (32%) dementia. They completed the Marwit-Meuser Caregiver Grief Inventory Short Form and the Brief Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (Brief-COPE) questionnaire. We asked carers to identify strategies used for managing grief. We recorded field notes for 150 interviews and audio-recorded additional interviews with a sub-sample of 16 participants. RESULTS: Correlations indicated that emotion-oriented coping was associated with lower grief (R = -0.341), and dysfunctional coping with higher grief (R = 0.435), with a small association with problem-focused strategies (R = -0.109), partly supporting our hypothesis. Our qualitative themes broadly match the three Brief-COPE styles. Unhelpful strategies of denial and avoidance align with dysfunctional coping strategies. Psychological strategies (including acceptance and humour) and seeking support were consistent with emotion-focused strategies, but we did not identify a theme relating to problem-focused strategies. CONCLUSION: Most carers identified multiple strategies for processing grief. Carers could readily identify supports and services that they found helpful for managing pre-death grief, yet current services appear under-resourced to meet growing demand. (ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03332979).

Grief in family carers of people living with dementia: A systematic review.

OBJECTIVES: Grief research in family carers of people with dementia has increased. We aimed to report the prevalence of pre-death and post-death grief and to synthesize associated factors and the relationship between pre-death factors and post-death grief and services used to manage grief. DESIGN: (Prospero protocol: CRD42020165071) We systematically reviewed literature from PsycINFO, MEDLINE, CINAHL, and ASSIA until April 2020. Effectiveness of intervention data and studies not written in English were excluded; qualitative studies were additionally excluded during study selection. Study quality was assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Evidence was narratively summarized. PARTICIPANTS: Family non-paid carers of somebody with any dementia type. MEASUREMENTS: Validated measures of pre-death and/or post-death grief. RESULTS: We included quantitative data from 55 studies (44 rated as high quality). Most included solely spouse or adult child carers. Forty-one studies reported pre-death grief, 12 post-death grief, and 6 service use; eight were longitudinal. 17% met the Prolonged Grief Disorder criteria pre-death (n = 1) and 6-26% (n = 4) of participants met the Complicated Grief criteria post-death. Being a spouse, less educated, caring for somebody with advanced dementia, and greater burden and depression were associated with higher pre-death grief. Lower education level and depression were predictive of higher post-death grief. Pre-death factors found to influence post-death grief were grief and depression. Limited service use evidence was reported. CONCLUSION: Awareness of characteristics which increase the likelihood of higher grief can help identify those in need of support. Future research should focus on what supports or services are beneficial to grief experiences.

A mixed methods evaluation of a program exploring predeath grief and loss for carers of people with rarer dementias.

OBJECTIVES: Predeath grief conceptualizes complex feelings of loss experienced for someone who is still living and is linked to poor emotional well-being. The Road Less Travelled program aimed to help carers of people with rarer dementias identify and process predeath grief. This study evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of this program. DESIGN: Pre-post interventional mixed methods study. SETTING: Online videoconference group program for carers across the UK held in 2021. PARTICIPANTS: Nine family carers of someone living with a rare form of dementia. Eight were female and one male (mean age 58) with two facilitators. INTERVENTION: The Road Less Travelled is an online, facilitated, group-based program that aims to help carers of people with rarer dementias to explore and accept feelings of grief and loss. It involved six fortnightly 2-hour sessions. MEASUREMENTS: We collected measures for a range of well-being outcomes at baseline (T1), post-intervention (T2), and 3 months post-intervention (T3). We conducted interviews with participants and facilitators at T2. RESULTS: Participant attendance was 98% across all sessions. Findings from the semistructured interviews supported the acceptability of the program and identified improvements in carer well-being. Trends in the outcome measures suggested an improvement in quality of life and a reduction in depression. CONCLUSION: The program was feasible to conduct and acceptable to participants. Qualitative reports and high attendance suggest perceived benefits to carers, including increased acceptance of grief, and support the need for a larger-scale pilot study to determine effectiveness.

Grieving in community: Accompanying bereaved parents.

This study explored relational grieving in community by examining how community members grieve with bereaved parents after the death of a child. Three bereaved parent couples and their community members were interviewed together using the qualitative action-project method to examine their shared grieving actions. Data was analyzed through top-down and bottom-up processes to understand the shared intentions of their grieving actions together. The findings of this research elicited thick descriptions of relational grieving at a community level. Four main assertions of how communities grieve with bereaved parents emerged, and include: (a) selflessly offering emotional and practical support, (b) engaging in and honouring vulnerability, (c) holding the complexity of grieving, and (d) fostering remembrance of the deceased child together. The novel descriptions of relational grieving in community contributed to the growing area of relational bereavement research. The theoretical, empirical, and clinical implications of this study are discussed.

The Impact of Distress, Personal Meaning & Training on the Delivery of Support to Grieving Students by School Nurses.

Supporting grieving students is part of a school nurse's role which can provide meaning or special purpose in their career. This was verified by an online survey completed by 648 school nurse members of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN). A majority of respondents felt personal distress as a result of their work with grieving students which was predicted by a lack of access to work/community resources available and a lower level of educational background of the school nurse. Training to support grieving students and a higher level of educational background of the school nurse, however, appeared to predict a greater level of personal meaning found in school nurses' support of grieving students. Level of support by school leadership provided to school nurses in their support of grieving students was also found to be related to both the personal distress experienced and the personal meaning derived by school nurses.

Participatory Grieving: A Concept Analysis.

Grief is a psychobiological response to loss as manifested by intense feeling of sadness, along with thoughts, mental images and memories of the deceased loved one. In order for the patient to attain successful grieving process, it is fundamental among nurses to recognize and understand the loss or impending loss experienced by the patient and/or its significant others. With the use of Walker and Avant's concept analysis, together with thorough literature review pertaining to bereavement and grieving, the defining attributes, antecedents and consequences of participatory grieving were determined. Furthermore, the results of this concept analysis provide a better view on the significant roles and responsibilities of nurses during the grieving process.

Linguistic and Personological Features of the Doka and Martin Grieving Style Continuum.

While there is extensive research on the adaptive grief styles developed by Doka and Martin, this study is the first of its kind to explore the language used among each style of grief. This study used clinical vignettes from a variety of sources on instrumental and intuitive grieving in an attempt to decipher the language use across various linguistic and psychological processes. Following this analysis, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) was used fitting a two-topic model to analyze differences between topics while additionally performing a supervised LDA analysis. The strongest data from this study relate to intuitive grief, which found a higher use of present-tense language in comparison to the instrumental grief style. In addition, results found that the language used by intuitive grievers is slightly more distinguishable than that of its instrumental counterpart. Several implications for counseling and research were developed in response to these findings.

Global Mediatized Death and Emotion: Parasocial Grieving-Mourning #stephenhawking on Twitter.

This study examined mediatized death and emotion, specifically parasocial grieving, toward high-profile celebrity Stephen Hawking's death from a global perspective. A thematic analysis of public tweets explored how social media mourners expressed parasocial grieving following Hawking's death and how that shaped mediatized global flows of emotion in terms of digital affect culture. Findings showed varied forms of mediatized emotional responses associated with parasocial grievings, such as sadness, shock, confusion, love, and longing. Mourners also adopted varied coping mechanisms, including individualized tributes, reminiscing, memorializing, and advocacy. Findings suggested that Hawking's mourners performed parasocial death rituals on Twitter as a legitimate public space of mourning. Findings contribute to parasocial grieving scholarship and mediatization of death and emotion.

Anticipatory grief and bereavement: the perspective of an individual with autism.

Much has been written around the meaning and impact of grief and grieving on people's lives following the death of a person, and anticipatory grief/grieving is receiving increased attention in nursing and healthcare. However, the impact of anticipatory grief on an autistic male adult has received far less research exposure than that of neurotypical (non-autistic) adults. This article, 'written' in the form of a letter by the author to community nurses, seeks to address this. The intention is to initiate reflective discussions around anticipatory grief and grieving, as current and future support will be stimulated on the part of community nurses through dialogue between those on the autistic spectrum and community nurses. Ultimately, the aim of this article is to help improve the support provided by community nurses to autistic individuals.

The Dead with No Wake, Grieving with No Closure: Illness and Death in the Days of Coronavirus in Spain.

The pandemic caused by the spread of Covid-19 is giving rise to an exceptional social situation because of the great speed of propagation of the illness and the high level of mortality it has occasioned in a very short time. Moreover, the lockdown measures decreed in Spain prohibit the holding of wakes to avoid contagion, and limit funerals to three people plus the officiant. Thus, coronavirus is robbing people of the opportunity of a final farewell, stripping the dead of their dignity and worsening the grief of the living. This article investigates the situation and the social and cultural impact it has provoked. The method used takes the line of critical dialogue analysis (CDA) applied to information contained in the mass media, employing qualitative material from a related small-scale study. The results show that in countries like Spain where there is a strong Roman Catholic tradition the importance of these rituals is unquestionable. Although the country has become laicized over recent years, many traditions around death are still maintained. Hence, the impossibility of holding funerals is triggering a large number of social and personal conflicts. Furthermore, they indicate that lockdown, and the lack of rituals and of accompaniment constitute some of the most crucial stressors in the epidemic. Grief in solitude has become widespread and all the more fundamental in a society that values social support from close friends and family members. The conclusions show that the social distancing imposed by the epidemic is especially hard to bear when relatives are passing into death.

"Dude I've Never Felt This Way Towards a Celebrity Death": Parasocial Grieving and the Collective Mourning of Kobe Bryant on Reddit.

Although research acknowledges the existence of parasocial relationships, if these relationships are possible then, inevitably, these relationships will dissolve. The emotions associated with parasocial breakups, especially that of grieving, are vital to understanding the totality of relationships between spectators and sports figures. After the devastating death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, a content analysis was used to explore the emotional and mental responses of grief posted on Reddit. The results suggest that sadness and shock were the most common responses of grief across Reddit threads, while the use of reminiscing and memorializing was also prevalent across both. Additionally, this study provides evidence to support the notion that like real relationships, emotional responses of grief like sadness dissipate over time, while other emotional responses like love increase. Thus, any study examining parasocial grieving must do so longitudinally as parasocial grief, like real grief, is a process not momentary.

Music as Consolation-The Importance of Music at Farewells and Mourning.

In this study we examined a case where twelve participants conducted farewell ceremonies for their deceased relatives. Taking a qualitative approach, we used interviews and questionnaires to focus on life stories that involve grieving. Specifically, we asked about experiences of the grief process as related to choice of music. Our results indicate that the role of music in farewell rituals is important for the grieving process in several ways. Firstly, music was associated with positive memories of the loved one and gave rise to experiences of recognition. Secondly, music facilitated active participation in the grieving process through choosing farewell music together with a relative. Thirdly, selecting music for the funeral in advance, together with their loved ones, was also experienced as hopeful, comforting and consoling before, during and after the bereavement.

COVID-19 Ruptures And Disruptions on Grieving And Mourning Within an African Context: Lessons For Social Work Practice.

Losing a significant other through death is a tragic experience worsened by the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To curb this massive increase of deaths, the South African government introduced various rules to regulate the burial process. However, these COVID-19 regulations have caused major ruptures and disruptions on how bereaved families observe and practice cultural rites and customs following death within an African context. Consequently, many bereaved family members, particularly Black Africans, struggle with adhering to the regulations and funerals have been coined 'super spreaders' of the virus. The concerns raised in this article are twofold, namely, the impact of the Covid-19 regulations on how Black Africans grieve and mourn, as well as the involvement of social workers in formulating regulations that ought to be adhered to. This article explores the fissures and bricolages brought about by COVID-19, ultimately suggesting possible ways of dealing the losses ascribed to the pandemic.

Entertainment-Education: What Are Grey's Anatomy and Saving Hope Teaching Us About Death?

In this article, we examine primetime television as a source of entertainment-education on death. Using directed (deductive) and conventional (inductive) approaches to content analysis, we describe how death and dying are being depicted on two primetime medical television series, Grey's Anatomy and Saving Hope. We then discuss what kinds of information viewers may be taking from these series. Our deductive content analysis suggests that much of the messages obtained are fairly representative of what occurs in real hospital settings, with the exception of emotional display. From the inductive analysis, we identified four thematic categories: 'the person dies, but life goes on', 'the tragic death', 'the purposeful death', and 'the well-timed death'. Regardless of category, no rituals are conducted at the moment of death and little space is made for grieving on primetime medical television shows. While death is often present, displays of grief are avoided.

Spirituality for Coping with the Trauma of a Loved One's Death During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Italian Qualitative Study.

Spirituality may be a key factor in reducing the negative psychological effects of traumatic events and a means by which the experience of grief can be processed. The objective of the present research is to assess whether and how spirituality provided concrete support in those who lost a loved one during the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants are 8 people from the most affected cities in northern Italy. They were interviewed in depth, the interviews were transcribed and the texts were analyzed through Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. The results show that spirituality has been found to be a protective factor with regard to the processing of grief in crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular with regard to the belief that the deceased loved one is now in an otherworldly dimension. In addition, the celebration of a funeral rite offers support to the grieving person in the early stages of mourning thus laying the foundation for a healthy grieving process. It is therefore important to support individual spirituality, which can be a useful tool for processing the traumatic experience, especially in difficult times such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anticipatory grieving and loss during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent correspondence shows that death and burial practices deem significant in understanding the meaning and acceptance of the untimely and unexpected death of a family member afflicted with the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease. These, in turn, raise the need to address the anticipatory grieving process of the family. This paper examines the importance of anticipatory grieving that ultimately affects the lives of the family of the bereaved.

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Concerns of Grieving Caregivers Scale (COGCS) with Two Clinical Samples.

The Concerns of Grieving Caregivers Scale (COGCS) is the first of its kind to explore caregivers' concerns about their own parenting, as well as their relationships with, and specific behaviours of their bereaved child(ren). Using exploratory factor analysis, we evaluate grieving parents' and caregivers' concerns using data collected across clinical populations from two community organizations supporting grieving families (i.e., a children's grief centre and a community hospice). Two identified factors were established: Concerns about Caregiving and Concerns about the Child. The COGCS demonstrates good internal consistency and criterion validity in its application with two distinct clinical samples. The use of this scale could be of value to clinicians supporting bereaved caregivers and their families as they can integrate concern-specific resources into their practice to better support their clients' presenting concerns.