Thanatology - Lesson 2.1

Attachment, Loss and Grief

Acute Grief

The intense physical and emotional expression of grief occurring as the awareness increases of a loss of someone of something significant.

Attachment Theory

The model describing the tendency to make strong affectional bonds with others coming from the need for security and safety.

Bereavement

The act of event of separation or loss that results in the experience of the emotion of grief.

Cognition

Study of the origins and consequences of thoughts, memories, perceptions and other mental processes.

Emotional Intelligence

Ability to perceive, use, understand and manage emotions.

Emotions

Feelings created by brains patters accompanied by bodily changes. F

Fear

Strong emotion marked by such reactions as alarm, dread and disquieting.

Funeral Service Psychology

The study of human behavior as related to funeral service.

Grief

An emotion or set of emotions due to a loss; an emotion brought about by sereration (death)

Greif Work

A set of basic tasks that must be completed for successful mourning to take place

Mourning

Outward expression of grief; the process of adjustment and adaption to loss.

Personality

A relatively stable system of determining tendencies within an individual; traits that assist in explaining and predicting someone’s behavior.

Thanatology

The study of death, dying and bereavement.

Thanatophobia

The irrational, exaggerated fear of death.

Who developed the Attachment Theory?

Psychiatrist John Bowlby

Explain difference between grief and bereavement.

Bereavement is the state of being associated with the emotion grief.

Explain the difference between Grief and mourning

Mourning is the response of the emotion grief.

• Who the person was

• Nature of the attachment

• How the person died

• Historical Event

• Personality Variables

• Social Variables

• Concurrent Stresses

• Extraneous Stresses

List the mediators of grief.

• Age

• Gender

• Attachment Type

• Assumptive World View

• Self-Esteem

• Coping Styles

List the 6 aspects of personality mediators

• Strength of Attachment

• Security of Attachment

• Ambivalence in the Relationship

• Conflicts with the deceased

• Depedent Relationships

List the 5 aspects of the Mediator of the Nature of Attachment.

Addresses now necessary the deceased was to the survival of the bereaved.

What is meant by the security of attachment as part of the mediators of grief?

• Suddenness of death

• Violent/traumatic death

• Multiple deaths

• Preventable Deaths

• Ambiguous deaths

• Stigmatized Deaths

What are the aspects of the Mode of Death as related to the mediators of grief?

• Support Availability

• Support Satisfaction

• Social Role Involvements

• Religious Resources/Ethnic Expectations

What are the 4 social variables of Grief?