CHAPTER 19

OVERVIEW OF NORMAL EXPERIENCE OF GRIEF

A vital task of funeral service personnel is to become familiar with those thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that may be expressed by the bereaved person. What follows is an overview of the normal adult grief process.

A number of observers have defined models of grief that are often referred to as “stages,” e.g., Bowlby (1973), Engel (1971), Kubler-Ross (1969), Lindemann (1944), and Parkes (1972). Erich Lindemann’s 1944 article on the “Symptomatology and Management of Acute Grief” was one of the first writings in this area. His observations were based on interviews with over 100 grieving persons who had experienced the death of family members in Boston’s Coconut Grove restaurant fire. Lindemann and other authors most typically describe stages as moving from disorganization to reorganization or as moving from shock to recovery.

Our goal for the purposes of this chapter is to present a multidimensional model of an adult’s grief experience. This model is based upon my personal experiences with loss, clinical experiences with grieving persons, and teachings from the literature. By no means do I pretend that this model is all-inclusive; however, I do hope it aids funeral service personnel in the understanding of the grief experience.

Not every person will experience each and every response described and certainly not necessarily in the order outlined. Some regression will occur along the way and invariably some overlapping. Unfortunately, as previously written, a person’s response to loss is never as uncomplicated as described by the written word. You will note that the word “dimension” of grief, as opposed to “stage” of grief, is used in an effort to prevent thinking that the experience of grief occurs in some kind of ordered fashion.

Now, keeping in mind the uniqueness of each person’s experience with grief, let’s familiarize ourselves with some of the more common dimensions of the experience.

SHOCK/DENIAL/NUMBNESS/DISBELIEF

The constellation of experiences of shock, denial, numbness and disbelief is often nature’s way of temporarily protecting the mourner from the reality of the death of someone loved. In reflecting on this experience, most mourners make comments like, “I was there, but yet I really wasn’t,” “It was like a dream,” “I managed to do what needed to be done, but I didn’t feel a part of it.” Reports of feeling dazed and stunned are very common during this time.

When little, if any, opportunity occurs to anticipate a death, this constellation of experiences is typically heightened and prolonged. However, even when the death of someone loved is expected, we often see components of shock, denial, numbness and disbelief. This experience creates an insulation from the reality of the death until one is more able to tolerate what one doesn’t want to believe. It serves as a “temporary time-out” or “psychological shock absorber.” Our emotions need time to catch up with what our minds have been told. At one level, the mourner knows the person is dead, yet is not able or willing to believe it.

This constellation of experiences acts as an anesthetic; the pain is there, but you do not experience it in its full reality. In a very real sense the body and mind take over in an effort to help the person survive. Typically a physiological component to this experience includes a takeover by the autonomic nervous system. Heart palpitations, queasiness, stomach pain, and dizziness are among the most common experiences.

A wide spectrum of what might be termed bizarre behaviors in other contexts is often observed. Hysterical crying, outbursts of anger, laughing, and fainting are frequently witnessed at this time. In actuality, expressing these behaviors allows for survival. Unfortunately, people around mourners at this time will often try to suppress these experiences.

This dimension of the grief experience typically reflects only the beginning of the person’s journey through grief. However, important to note is that many people, both lay and professionals, acknowledge these manifestations as the entire mourning process. This phenomenon is reflected in the often heard comment from the bereaved person: “People were there for me right at the time of the death and for a short time thereafter, but they quickly returned to their routines and seemed to forget about me and my need for support and understanding.” These kinds of statements tell helpers something very important about not only being available at the time of the death, but for a long time thereafter. This also helps explain the increasing interest in post funeral service follow-up programs.

The process of beginning to embrace the full reality of the death and move beyond this dimension of one’s grief varies widely. Shock and numbness wane only at the pace one is able and ready to acknowledge feelings of loss. To provide a specific time frame for everyone would be to overgeneralize. However, based on my personal experiences, clinical experiences, and knowledge of the literature, commonly this spectrum of experiences is most intense during the first four- to six-week period immediately following the death of someone loved.

However, even after one becomes capable of embracing the reality of the loss, times still exist when this dimension comes to the surface. This is particularly seen at such times as the anniversary of death or other special occasions (birthdays, holidays, etc.). I also have repeatedly witnessed the resurgence of this dimension when the person visits a place associated with a special memory of the dead person.

In actuality, the person’s mind approaches and retreats from the reality of a death over and over again, as he or she tries to embrace and integrate the meaning of the death into his or her life. The availability of a consistent support system allows this process to occur. During this process of acknowledging one’s grief, the hope, at times, is that one will wake up from a bad dream and that none of this really happened.

DISORGANIZATION/CONFUSION/ SEARCHING/YEARNING

Often, the most isolating and frightening part of the experience of grief begins after the funeral. This is frequently when the mourner begins to be confronted with the reality of the death. As one woman expressed, “I felt as if I was a lonely traveler with no companion, and worse yet, no destination. It was as if I couldn’t find myself or anybody else.”

This is when many people experience the “going crazy syndrome.” Because normal thoughts and behaviors in grief are so different from what one normally experiences, the grieving person does not know whether the behavior is normal or abnormal. The experiences described below are so common after the death of someone loved that they must be acknowledged as part of the normal process of mourning. A major task of the helper is to assist in normalizing these experiences.

Often present is a sense of restlessness, agitation, impatience, and ongoing confusion. An analogy that seems to fit is that it is like being in the middle of a wild, rushing river, whereby you can’t get a grasp on anything. Disconnected thoughts race through the mourner’s mind and strong emotions at times are overwhelming. Disorganization and confusion often manifest themselves in terms of an inability to complete any tasks. A project may get started but go unfinished. Time is distorted and seen as something to be endured. Certain times of day, often early morning and late night, are times when the person feels most disoriented and confused. Disorganization and confusion are often accompanied by fatigue and lack of initiative. The acute pain of the loss is devastating to the point that normal pleasures do not seem to matter.

A restless searching for the person who dies is a common part of the experience. Parkes (1972), Bowlby (1973), and others have written extensively about searching behavior. Yearning for the dead person and being preoccupied with memories of the individual have led to intense moments of distress. Often a shift in perception makes other people look like the dead person. A phenomenon sometimes occurs whereby sounds are interpreted as signals that the person has returned. For example, hearing the garage door open and the person entering the house as they had done for so many years.

Visual hallucinations occur so frequently that they cannot be considered abnormal. I personally prefer the term “memory picture” to visual hallucination. It seems that as part of the searching and yearning process the mourner not only experiences a sense of the dead person’s presence, but may have transient experiences of looking across the room and seeing the person.

Other common features during this time are difficulties with eating and sleeping. Many people experience loss of appetite while others overeat. Those people who do eat often note a lack of being able to taste their food. Difficulty in going to sleep and early morning awakening also are common experiences.

Dreams about the dead person are often a part of the experience at this time. Dreams are often an unconscious means of searching for the person who has died. People often described to me that their dreams are an opportunity to be close to the person. As one widower related, “I find myself dreaming about my wife. I see us together, happy and content. If it only could be that way again.” The content of these dreams often reflects the real life changes in the person’s experience with mourning.

GENERALIZED ANXIETY/PANIC/FEAR

Feelings of anxiety, panic, and fear are often experienced by the mourner. These feelings are typically generated from thoughts such as “Will my life have any purpose without this person? I don’t think I can live without him.” The death of someone loved naturally threatens one’s feelings of security and results in the evolution of anxiety.

As the person’s mind is continually brought back to the pain of the loss, panic may set in. Anxiety and fear often relate to thoughts about “going crazy.” The thought of being abnormal creates even more intense fear.

Fear of what the future holds, fear that if one person dies, will another?, increased awareness of one’s own mortality, feelings of vulnerability about being able to survive without the person, inability to concentrate, and emotional and physical fatigue all serve to heighten anxiety, panic, and fear. The mourner often feels overwhelmed by everyday problems and concerns. To make matters worse, a change may occur in economic status, large bills to be paid, and the fear of becoming dependent on others.

PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES

A person’s body responds to what the mind has been told at a time of acute grief. Some of the most common physiological changes that the mourner may experience are as follows:

generalized lack of energy and fatigue,
shortness of breath,
feelings of emptiness in the stomach,
tightness in the throat and chest,
sensitivity to noise,
heart palpitations,
queasiness,
difficulty in sleeping or
    on other occasions prolonged sleeping,
headaches, and
agitation and generalized tension.

With loss, the mourner’s immune system breaks down and he or she becomes more vulnerable to illness. Many studies have documented significant increases in illness following bereavement.

In the majority of instances, physical symptoms are normal and temporary. At times, the mourner will unconsciously assume a “sick role” in an effort to legitimize his or her feelings to others. This often results in frequent visits to the physician. Unfortunately, assumption of the “sick role” often occurs when the person does not receive encouragement to mourn, or doesn’t give self permission to express thoughts and feelings in other ways.

EXPLOSIVE EMOTIONS

Because of society’s attitude toward anger, this dimension is often the most upsetting to those persons around the griever. Often, both the mourner and those persons trying to be supportive to the mourner have problems acknowledging and creating an environment for the expression of this wide spectrum of emotions. The reason for this is frequently related to the uncertainty of how to respond to the griever at this time.

We sometimes oversimplify these emotions by talking only about anger. The mourner also may experience feelings of hate, blame, terror, resentment, rage, and jealousy. While these emotions all have their distinctive features, adequate similarities exist in the person’s underlying needs to warrant discussing the various explosive emotions together. Beneath the explosive emotions are the griever’s more primary feelings of pain, helplessness, frustration, fear, and hurt.

Expression of explosive emotions often relates to a desire to restore things to the way they were before the death. Even though a conscious awareness exists that the person has died, the need to express explosive emotions and a desire to “get the person back” seems to be grounded in psychobiological roots. As John Bowlby (1961) has observed:

There are therefore good biological reasons for every separation to be responded to in an automatic instinctive way with aggressive behavior; irretrievable loss is statistically so unusual that it is not taken into account. In the course of our evolution, it appears our instinctual equipment has come to be so fashioned that all losses are assumed to be retrievable and are responded to accordingly.

So while the expression of explosive emotions does not create the desired result of bringing the dead back to life, we can hopefully understand the naturalness of its existence. If viewed in this fashion, anger and other related emotions can be seen as intelligent responses that the grieving person is making to restore the relationship that has been lost. Actually, in my experience, a healthy survival value exists in being able to temporarily protest the painful reality of the loss. It’s as if having the capacity to express anger gives one the courage to survive at this particular point in time. The griever who either does not give self permission, or doesn’t receive permission from others to protest, may slide into a chronic depressive response that includes no desire to go on living.

The fact that the dead person does not come back despite the griever’s explosive emotions is part of the reality testing needed for the eventual process of reconciliation. With the gradual awareness that the person who has died will, in fact, not return, the need for the expression of these emotions changes over time.

Only when the reality that the loss is permanent creeps in does the person free himself or herself from this task of grieving. Should the explosive emotions become chronic, not changing over time, this would be an indication of a complicated grief response.

Outward Explosive Emotions

Explosive emotions basically have two avenues for expression: outward or inward. What the griever does with these emotions can have a powerful impact on the person’s journey through grief. The anger may be expressed outwardly toward friends and family, the physician, God, the person who died, the funeral service personnel, people who have not experienced loss, or any number of other persons or places.

For our present purposes, let’s briefly expand on anger that gets directed toward God. Some mourners perceive death to be a form of punishment and naturally respond with anger toward those they feel are responsible for the death. God, seen as having power over life and death, becomes a target for the expression of explosive emotions. For example, a protestant man remarked: “I stopped attending church after my wife’s death. She and I had been so devoted in our faith and yet He took her from me. I don’t see any point in being faithful to Him if He is not going to be faithful to me.”

As previously mentioned, another frequent target for the expression of anger is family members. In a study of the first year of bereavement, Glick, Weiss, and Parkes (1974) noted that widows were angry at family members for lack of support, for overprotection, and for disappointment in expected help from relatives. Among other things, anger also was reported over funeral details, withdrawal, and at the eagerness of relatives to acquire possessions of the person who died.

Inward Explosive Emotions

In some instances, mourners will direct their anger inward resulting in low self-esteem, depression, chronic feelings of guilt, physical complaints, and potentially suicide. When anger is repressed and directed inward, the person’s experience with grief often becomes complicated and chronic. Anger turned inward may result in agitation, tension, and general restlessness. It is as if something is inside the person trying to get out.

Should you observe cues that lead you to believe that the mourner has turned his or her anger inward, it would be appropriate to refer the person to someone more experienced in counseling the bereaved.

GUILT/REMORSE/ASSESSING CULPABILITY

We now recognize that guilt and self-blame are often seen in the grieving person. A natural process seems to occur of assessing one’s culpability following loss through death. Some people become obsessed by guilt, leading to a complicated grief response and the need for specialized help, while others come to understand the normalcy of temporary feelings of guilt.

Guilt evolves in a number of ways as a part of the experience of grief. Perhaps the most common is the “If only I would have …” or “Why didn’t I …” syndrome. This often relates to a sense of wanting to change the circumstances surrounding the death or unfinished business in the relationship with the person who died.

Some examples of common “if onlys” that you may hear the person express are as follows:

If only I would have known he was dying.
If only I would have gotten her to the doctor sooner.
If only I had insisted that she take better care of herself.
If only I had been a better wife.

These are only a few of hundreds of examples that could be given. While the expression of guilt is often not logical or real, it is still a natural part of the healing process. Unfortunately, as helpers, we often find ourselves wanting to rush in and try to take away the person’s need to express guilt or self-blame.

Feelings of guilt are often expressed about the days or weeks just prior to the death of the person. Assessing one’s culpability during this time often seems to be an indirect means of assuring oneself that they did everything they could have done for the person. This is most certainly an understandable need on the part of the survivor. A common theme I often witness at this time is a desire to have created opportunities to talk with the person about their dying. For example, “If only we could have been honest with each other about what was happening.”

Surviving a person who has died often generates feelings of guilt. Surinval guilt leads the person to ask, “How is it that they died and I survived?” I recently saw a middle-aged man in counseling who had been driving an automobile in which his wife was a passenger. He fell asleep at the wheel and there was an accident. His wife died instantly and he walked away without a scratch. He needed to be able to explore the question of his survival in the face of her death. In his mind, his sense of responsibility for falling asleep demanded his death, but certainly not his wife’s.

Another type of guilt evolves when a person’s death brings some sense of relief or release. This often occurs when the person who died had been ill for a prolonged period of time or the relationship was conflicted. In the case of a long illness, the mourner may not miss the frequent trips to the hospital or the physical responsibilities of caring for the person. If the person is not able to acknowledge this sense of relief as natural, and not equal to a lack of love, they may feel guilty for feeling relieved.

An example of the relief-guilt syndrome in a conflicted relationship is as follows: I have worked with a number of families who have experienced the death of an alcoholic member of their family. Upon the person’s death, naturally certain behaviors the family does not miss. Again, if the survivors are able to be understanding of their sense of relief, all is well and good. However, they often get caught in the trap of the relief-guilt syndrome.

Another form of guilt is that which evolves from long-standing personality factors of the survivor. Some people are taught early in life, typically during childhood, that they are responsible when anything bad or unfortunate occurs. When a death occurs in their lives, the first place they look to find blame is at themselves. Obviously, this kind of guilt relates to long-standing personality factors that would have to be something to work on in the context of a professional counseling relationship.

Guilt also can be experienced when the mourner begins to re-experience any kind of joy or happiness in their life. This is often related to loyalty to the deceased and fears that being happy in some way betrays the relationship that once was. Opportunities to explore these feelings are often necessary as the person moves forward in the experience of the grief.

Survivors often witness feelings of guilt when they were not able to be present when the death occurred. Often the irrational, yet understandable thought is that, “If I had been there, the person would not have died.” This often relates to a desire to have power or control over something which one has no power or control over. After all, if I feel guilty, it means I could have done something to change the outcome of what happened. The survivors, thinking that if they were present the outcome would have been different, seem to be attempting to counter a felt sense of helplessness and unimportance. Again, certainly an understandable response in the context of the painful reality of the loss.

You also will witness occasions when feelings of guilt will be induced by those persons around the griever. This often occurs through ignorance, lack of understanding, or the need to project outside of oneself onto others.

Projecting outside of oneself is illustrated by family members who, in wanting to deny their own pain and any sense of culpability, strike-out against other family members.

An unfortunate example of guilt induction is the family friend who informs the recently bereaved widow: “Your husband would not have died if you had had a closer relationship with God.” These kinds of messages often become very destructive to the mourner who is already struggling with grief.

People sometimes feel guilty for having had a conscious or unconscious wish for the death toward the person who has died. This relates to the concept of magical thinking that somehow one’s thoughts can cause action. The majority of relationships have components of ambivalence whereby a person will think on occasion, “I wish you would go away and leave me alone.” Or, in highly conflicted relationships even more direct thoughts of wanting the relationship to end will have occurred. When the person does die, the survivor has a sense that they somehow caused the death.

While all relationships have periods of time when negative thoughts are experienced, obviously, one’s mind does not have the power to inflict death on someone. Again, however, you can easily see how the person might connect his or her thoughts with events that occur.

Feelings of guilt are not limited to any select group of people. They are a natural part of the experience of grief. Being aware of the normalcy of guilt and the need to assess culpability hopefully allows you to enter the helping relationship with an open mind and an available presence.

LOSS/EMPTINESS/SADNESS

With good reason, this constellation of feelings and experiences is often the most difficult for the griever. The full sense of loss never occurs all at once. Often weeks, more often months, pass after the death before the person is confronted by how much his or her life is changed by the loss. A person that has been a vital part of one’s life is no longer present. The mourner certainly has the right to have feelings of loss, emptiness, and sadness. Unfortunately, many people surrounding the mourner frequently try to take these feelings away from the person. Friends, family, and sometimes even professional caregivers erroneously believe that their job is to distract the mourner from these feelings.

At times the grieving person has intense feelings of loss and loneliness. When these experiences initially occur they are usually very frightening to the person. Thinking and hoping that he or she has already experienced the most devastating of these emotions, the person usually is unprepared for the depth of this experience.

Given the opportunity, the majority of mourners will share that the following times are among the most difficult: weekends; holidays; upon initially waking in the morning; late at night, particularly at bedtime; family meal times; upon arriving home to an empty house; and any kind of anniversary occasion. These difficult times usually have some special connection to the person who has died.

Loss, emptiness, and sadness may be intense enough to be considered depression. The literature contains much debate on grief concerning the distinction between grief and depression. Grief is accompanied by many symptoms of depression such as sleep disturbance, appetite disturbance, decreased energy, withdrawal, guilt dependency, lack of concentration, and a sense of losing control. Changes in one’s normal capacity to function along with these and other depressive symptoms often result in the griever feeling isolated, helpless, and childlike. This normal repression that accompanies grief naturally impacts on one’s sense of self-esteem and well-being. The person often needs help understanding that these characteristics of mourning are temporary and will change over time.

An important procedure is to note some differences between the normal depressive experience of grief and clinical depression. Recognizing that other caregivers may use other criteria, the following are some of the distinctions I find helpful to distinguish between depressive grief and other forms of depression.

In normal grief, the person responds to comfort and support; whereas, depressives often do not accept support.

The bereaved are often openly angry; whereas, the depressive complains and is irritable but does not directly express anger.

Bereaved persons can relate their depressed features to the loss they have experienced; whereas, depressives often do not relate their experience to any life event.

In normal grief, people can still experience moments of enjoyment in life; whereas, with the depressive an all pervading sense of doom seems to exist.

Those people around the griever can sense feelings of sadness and emptiness; whereas, depressives project a sense of hopelessness and chronic emptiness.

The griever is more likely to have transient physical complaints; whereas, the depressive has chronic physical complaints.

The griever often expresses guilt over some specific aspect of the loss; whereas, the depressive often has generalized feelings of guilt.

While the self-esteem of the griever is temporarily impacted upon, it is not the depth of loss of esteem usually observed in the depressive.

Obviously, to distinguish between the depression of grief and clinical forms of depressive illness is not always easy. If you should find yourself in doubt regarding a differential diagnosis between the two, the wise procedure is to consider consultation from other trained professionals. On some occasions loss precipitates a major depressive illness that may require specialized medical intervention, i.e., antidepressant medication.

Related to depressive features we should note that many mourners do have transient thoughts of suicide. Often the hope is of being reunited with the person who has died or that this will allow the survivor to escape the pain of the grief. While transient suicidal thoughts are normal and common, suicidal thoughts always should be assessed with utmost care. When in doubt, be certain to obtain the help and guidance of a professional counselor who is trained in the assessment of suicide risk.

Feelings of deprivation and impoverishment also are common during mourning. The person might long to be held, comforted, and simply wish to have that person who has died to talk to. Often the thought is, “The one person who understood me is gone and I feel abandoned.” Well-known author C.S. Lewis (1961) expressed his sense of deprivation following the death of his wife when he wrote: “Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, action after action had Helen for their target. Now their target is gone. I keep on, through habit, fitting an arrow to the string, then 1 remember that I have to lay the bow down.”

The person who is not in an environment conducive to acknowledging and exploring experiences of intense loss, emptiness, and sadness will sometimes be in the position of being in conflict about expressing these feelings. Suppressed feelings often push for release, while the person is either discouraged by others, by self, or by both to repress them. The frequent result is an increased sense of isolation, loss, and sadness.

RELIEF /RELEASE

Death can bring relief and release from suffering, particularly when the illness has been long and debilitating. Many people inhibit this normal dimension of their grief, fearing that others will think they are wrong or cruel to feel this way. So, while very natural, feelings of relief and release are often difficult for the griever to talk about and admit openly.

Relief does not equal a lack of feeling for the person who died, but instead relates to the griever’s response to an end to painful suffering. In addition, to feel relief is natural because death frees one of certain demands and opens up new opportunities and experiences.

I recently saw a 40-year-old man in counseling following the death of his 38-year-old wife. His wife had been suffering with bone cancer for the past two years. Upon her death, he was able to acknowledge his relief that she was finally free of her pain. However, he also was able, with time, to acknowledge that the marital relationship of 16 years always had been conflicted and unsatisfactory to him. He expressed release from their constant fights and his perception of their mutual chronic unhappiness in the relationship.

Feelings of relief and release also relate to the reality that we do not just begin to grieve at the moment of someone’s death. The experience of grief begins when the person with whom we have a relationship enters the transition from being alive and living to dying.

When the dying process is prolonged and filled with physical and emotional pain for those involved, one might observe that family members experience some of the following thoughts over time: Initially a sense of “he is sick,” toward “he is very sick,” toward “he may die,” toward “he is going to die,” toward “he is suffering too much,” toward “I’ll be glad when he is out of his pain,” toward “he is dead,” toward among a number of other thoughts and feelings “I’m relieved that he is dead and out of his pain.”

This process of changing thought patterns and experiences over time relates to the concept of anticipatory grief, a term first used by Erich Lindemann (1944). Anticipatory grief is when emotional responses occur before an expected loss. To explore this concept in-depth would be to go beyond the primary purpose of this chapter. However, the reader is urged to familiarize himself or herself with this concept in the grief literature.

Death also can be experienced as relief when the apparent alternative is a continual debilitating journey with an unconscious vegetative form of existence, chronic alcoholism, and other forms of living that involve lack of quality. Regardless of how loving and caring a family may be, at times chronic illness exhausts and drains everyone. When death finally comes, relief is experienced not in isolation, but amongst a number of other emotions as well.

Another aspect of relief for some people is a sense of having been spared because someone else, not themselves, died. Again, this sense of relief is natural and some persons will express a need to explore these feelings with you.

Crying and expressing the thoughts and feelings related to a loss also can be experienced as relief. I often witness a tremendous sense of relief from persons who have repressed and avoided the outward expression of their grief. Being able to acknowledge the pain of their experience frequently relieves internal pressure and allows them to make movement in the journey through their grief. To the mourner a sense of relief can occur by finding someone who is able to communicate an empathetic understanding of one’s experience.

The relief that comes from acknowledging the pain of grief becomes a critical step toward reconciliation. As the pain is explored, acknowledged, and accepted as a vital part of healing, a renewed sense of meaning and purpose follows. Working to embrace relief as one of many normal feelings creates the opportunity to find hope beyond one’s acute grief.

RECONCILIATION

The final dimension of grief in a number of proposed models is often referred to as resolution, recovery, reestablishment, or reorganization. This dimension often suggests a total return to “normalcy,” and yet in my personal, as well as professional experience, everyone is changed by the experience of grief. For the mourner to assume that life will be exactly as it was prior to the death is unrealistic and potentially damaging. Recovery as understood by some persons, mourners and caregivers alike, is all too often seen erroneously as an absolute, a perfect state of reestablishment.

Reconciliation is a term I believe to be more expressive of what occurs as the person works to integrate the new reality of moving forward in life without the physical presence of the person who has died. While we outlined this concept under our discussion of myths, it is so vital to understand that we will review it again here.

What occurs is a renewed sense of energy and confidence, an ability to fully acknowledge the reality of the death, and the capacity to become reinvolved with the activities of living. Also an acknowledgement occurs that pain and grief are difficult, yet necessary parts of life and living.

As the experience of reconciliation unfolds, the mourner recognizes that life will be different without the presence of the significant person who has died. A realization occurs that reconciliation is a process, not an event. Tasks involved in working through the completion of the emotional relationship with the person who has died, and redirecting of energy and initiative toward the future often take longer and involve more labor than most people are aware. We, as human beings, never “get over” our grief, but instead become reconciled to it.

We have noted that the course of mourning cannot be prescribed because it depends on many factors such as the nature of the relationship with the person who died, the availability and helpfulness of a support system, the nature of the death, and the ritual or funeral experience. As a result, despite how much we now know about dimensions of the grief experience, they will take different forms with different people. One of the major factors influencing the mourner’s movement toward reconciliation is that he or she will be allowed to mourn in his or her own unique way and time.

Reconciliation is the dimension wherein the full reality of the death becomes a part of the mourner. Beyond an intellectual working through is an emotional working through. What has been understood at the “head” level is now understood at the “heart” level—the person who was loved is dead. When a reminder such as holidays, anniversaries, or other special memories are triggered, the mourner experiences the intense pain inherent in grief, yet the duration and intensity of the pain is typically less severe as the healing of reconciliation occurs.

The pain changes from being ever-present, sharp, and stinging to an acknowledged feeling of loss that has given rise to renewed meaning and purpose. The sense of loss does not completely disappear, yet softens, and the intense pangs of grief become less frequent. Hope for a continued life emerges as the griever is able to make commitments to the future, realizing that the dead person will never be forgotten, yet knowing that one’s own life can and will move forward.

For more extensive information on the reconciliation process, the reader is referred to the article titled “Resolution versus Reconciliation: The Importance of Semantics” (Wolfelt, 1988).

REFERENCES

Bowlby, H. (1961). Processes of mourning. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 42, pp. 317-340

Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss: Separation. New York: Basic Books.

Engel, G.L. (1971). Sudden and rapid death during psychological stress. Annals of Internal Medicine, 74, pp. 771-782.

Glick, I.O., Weiss, R.S., & Parkes. C.M. (1974). The first year of bereavement. New York: Wiley.

Kubler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. New York: Macmillan.

Lewis, C.S. (1961). A grief observed. Geensich, CT: Seabury Press.

Lindemann, E. (1944). Symptomatology and management of acute grief. American Journal of Psychiatry, 101, pp. 141-148.

Parkes, C.M. (1972). Bereavement: Studies of grief in life. New York: International Universities Press.

Wolfelt, A.D. (1988). Resolution versus reconciliation: The importance of semantics. Thanatos. Vol. 12:4. pp. 10-13.