By Mary Goetz

DEATH AND DYING: COPING WITH GRIEF AND LOSS

GRIEF• “Grief is a normal, human reaction to devastating new. Grief will take its time with you- and you must take time with your grief. Some days it may feel like a tidal wave of emotion, threatening to knock you off your feet; on other days, you may feel gently rocked on a calm sea.” – Handbook for Mortals, Joanne Lynn and Joan Harold

Overview of Thanatology• Definition: The study of death and dying• Elisabeth Kubler-Ross•William Worden• Joanne Lynn, Joan Harold• Pre-Vietnam• Post-Vietnam: the Kubler-Ross Era

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross• Pioneer of grief and loss• Allowed people to talk about death and dying, fear of death• Memories: not leaving the deceased behind but taking them with in a new life without their physical presence• Kubler-Ross Stages of Grieving:• Denial and Isolation• Anger• Bargaining• Depression• Acceptance

Kubler-Ross Model• Considered to be a linear process• She came first, has become a little out-dated• Grief is not a linear process• Thanatologists after her have taken her model and transformed it into a more realistic process: i.e. William Worden

Dissecting Grief• Acute grief• Grief• Bereavement and mourning• Resolve• Shattered windshield metaphor

William Worden• More current and practical• 4 tasks of mourning:• Task 1: To accept the reality of the loss• Task 2: To process the pain of grief• Task 3: To adjust to a world without the deceased• Task 4: To find an enduring connection with the deceased in

the midst of embarking on a new life

Joanne Lynn and Joan Harold• Handbook for Mortals• Frequent Markers of Loss• Differentiation between {GRIEF AND LOSS} and {DEATH AND DYING}• Death and dying ex: time of hospice• Grief and loss: the emotions that surround the process of death and dying• Pattern of grief: the loss of acceptance of it being real, adjustment to loss, reinvestment in life

Quote from Hope Edelman’s book “Motherless Daughters”• “ I am fooling only myself when I say my mother exists now only in the photograph on my bulletin board or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. She lives on beneath everything I do. Her presence influenced who I was, and her absence influences who I am. Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay. Loss is our legacy. Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide.”• Resolved grief

Works Cited• Edelman, Hope. Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Pub., 1994. Print.• Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and Their Families. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone Book, 1997. Print.• Lynn, Joanne, and Joan K. Harrold. Handbook for Mortals: Guidance for People Facing Serious Illness. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.•Worden, J. William. Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner. New York: Springer Pub., 1991. Print.• Clinical Psychotherapist Susan Reynolds, MSW, LICSW, 2012