The Effects on Family Members and Functioning AFter the Death of a Pet

A pet's death can precipitate a grief as intense as that precipitated after the loss of a human. Because the pet is considered a family member, its death disrupts the lives of family members and family functioning. This article describes the family disruption that results from feelings of loss in four specific areas. It also discusses how a pet's death can lead to disorganization of family functioning. The nature and extent of family members' grief responses to pet death are described. Because of these losses, and the disruption and nature of the grief response, the need for counseling is established.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Sells, S.(1998). Treating the tough adolescent.
Diamon, J.(2000). Narrative means to sober ends: Treating addiction and its aftermath.
Dattilio, F.M. (Ed.). (1998). Case studies in couple and family therapy: Systemic and congnitive perspectives.
Boss, P.(1999). Ambiguous loss: Learning to live with unresolved grief.     

Helping foster parents cope with separation, loss, and grief

Major changes in planning for children in foster care have resulted in significant changes in the roles of and expectations for foster parents, accompanied by even less attention to the issues of foster families' grief and loss. This article focuses on (1) the many ways foster parents encounter loss and grief on a continuous basis; (2) factors that affect the intensity of the loss and the healthy expression and resolution of grief; (3) problems that can result when the grief of foster parents is not adequately addressed; and (4) ways in which professionals can be helpful to these caregivers around loss and grief.     

Child and adolescent homicide survivors. Complicated grief and altered worldviews

The act of homicide may influence the worldviews of children and adolescents. Problematic beliefs of uncertainty, inadequacy, perceiving the world as dangerous, self-denial, and lack of control can contribute to complicated grief in children and adolescents, and can potentially disrupt their normal psychosocial growth and development. Mental health professionals' understanding of grief after the homicide of a family member enhances their ability to intervene with and support young people struggling to cope with and adapt to a sudden loss.     

REVIEWS

Becvar, D. S. (2001). In the presence of grief: Helping family members resolve death, dying, and bereavement issues .
Hoffman, L. (2002). Family therapy: An intimate history .
Keith, D. V., Connell, G. M., & Connell, L. C. (2001). Defiance in the family: Finding hope in therapy .
Ravicz, S. (2000). Thriving with your autoimmune disorder: A woman's mind-body guide .     

"In search of a tale they can live with": about loss, family secrets, and selective disclosure

Several authors have written about family secrets in the family therapy literature in interesting ways. According to these authors, the questions “who knows the secret?” and “who does not know the secret?” are central. In the present study, we have qualitatively analyzed the documentary film Familiegeheim (Family Secret) by the Dutch director Jaap van Hoewijk. The film shows van Hoewijk’s investigation into the death of his father in 1974 and tells the story of a family in which the suicide of the father is kept secret from the three children. Our analysis of the film highlights the complex ways in which families deal with sensitive issues like loss, grief, and suicide. The concept of family secrets seems to poorly capture this complexity, focusing one‐sidedly on the destructive effects of withholding delicate information. The concept of selective disclosure is proposed as an alternative. Selective disclosure refers to the complex processes involved in dealing with the dialectic tension between sharing information and keeping it secret. The concept is not only focused on the destructiveness of secrecy but, in addition, also makes room for an appreciation of the caution with which family members deal with sensitive family issues.     

Grief and loss theory in social work practice: All changes involve loss,just as all losses require change

Working with and recognising grief and loss issues have long been identified as one of the core skills of social work practice. Despite its centrality, the exploration and application of grief and loss theory from a perspective other than death and dying has received sporadic attention in social work literature. This paper begins with a personal reflection from practice, which provided the catalyst writing in the first place. The concepts of grief and loss are then discussed in relation to losses other than death and dying. An analysis of historical and contemporary theories of grief and loss will then be explored, with the author advancing a theoretically expansive approach to grief and loss. This theoretical approach is one that is consistent with social work practice and is committed to diversity of experience and clients' strengths, as it adopts a framework for practice, which is constantly mindful of the context and meaning systems of social work clients.     

A Preliminary Investigation of Factors Associated With Job Loss Grief

This study investigated relationships among factors hypothesized as related to job loss grief. A summary grief score correlated positively with time since job loss and number of dependents, and negatively with length of notice. Perceived reemployment prospects and income loss related positively to some grief index subscales, as did the condition of living on one's own. Job duration correlated negatively with some grief responses. Implications for counseling and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Where can I mourn? Psychodynamic contributions to working in residential child care

ABSTRACT

Loss permeates the experience of being placed in residential child care, yet residential workers are rarely trained to work with young people who are grieving the loss of family and home. This article will provide an overview of psychodynamic theories of mourning, and will discuss how grief work can be facilitated for children and youth in residential child care.     

“She was more than a friend”: Clinical intervention strategies for effectively addressing disenfranchised grief issues for same-sex couples

This article focuses on grief experienced by same-sex couples with attention to the distinct factors that influence same-sex grieving partners within all social work system levels. An actual case narrative—the first author's lived experience—guides the reader through a powerful, personal journey to gain a greater perspective and connection on the impact of grief and loss. The concept of disenfranchised grief is applied to same-sex couples focusing on the grieving process. The authors delineate effective strategies for practitioner intervention for those working with individuals experiencing grief due to the loss of their same-sex partner. Particular emphasis is placed on cultural competence and cultural humility for enhanced effectiveness while working with same-sex-partner grief issues.     

Memory,Mourning and Meaning in a Psychotherapist’s Life

In this paper the author, a psychotherapist specializing in bereavement, recounts her personal experiences of loss and the ways in which they intersect and inform her professional life. One clinical vignette explores how unresolved grief in a patient and anticipated grief in a therapist emerge in transference-counter-transference issues. Another vignette illustrates a way in which supportive therapy can open the door to intra-psychic work with the ill or dying patient and how psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy with the aged can help them to re-imagine their lives and to form different relationships, in their minds, with significant others in their past.     

When, catastrophe happens. Assessment and intervention after sudden traumatic death

The goals of grief after sudden traumatic death is to acknowledge the loss, identify the changes the loss will have in the co-victim's life, and reinvest in life within the new structure. Although these goals seem simple, there is no definitive timeline for when these tasks will be engaged and completed by each of the family members. The pathway and time frame for each co-victim may differ.     

The Long Goodbye: Women, Companion Animals, and Maternal Loss

Heightened and often anxious attachment to companion animals can be one of the sequela of women's unresolved grief over early maternal loss. Clinical data suggest that, especially among women, the death of pets can reactivate the unfinished mourning over the mother. Drawing on one extensive case study, this paper examines this little explored, but commonly experienced relationship. From the perspectives of attachment theory and feminist therapy, the paper addresses the human-animal bond, gender differences in grief, the long term effects of early maternal loss, later attachment style, and companion animals as internalized parent/child figures. Recommendations for treatment are offered to help women work through both losses.     

Parental Grief and Serious Mental Illness: A Narrative

Serious mental illness is associated with substantial personal and interpersonal distress and life disruption for the sufferer and for his/her family. A common response to having and caring for a family member with a serious mental illness is feeling loss and grief. This paper presents a representative narrative that attempts to capture the essence of the experience as conveyed by 22 parents of adult children with a serious mental illness. The implication of the narrative is examined.     

Post-Suicide Grief Work In Family Therapy

The following case report describes the treatment of a family following the death by suicide of its principle male figure. It describes the way the various family members were helped to deal with the unresolved grief reaction that had come to play a destructive role in the life of this bereaved family. Working with the family group allowed a direct observation of the mourning processes of the various family members. In particular, we could see the attempt of the identified child patient at keeping the memory of the lost object alive become an obstacle to a natural resolution of her mother's mourning at that same loss.     

The social regulation of grief

This article explores the social regulation of grief as a function of normative criteria that assign differential social merit to different kinds of major relationship losses. Grief scholarship has been built largely on conventional assumptions about intimate attachment and its loss that overlook the possibility that the loss of an intimate other may not confer a socially legitimate right to grieve. This suggests the importance of understanding both the grief role and the subjective experience of grief itself as socially constructed. The social regulation of grief is examined in terms of the loss of de-moralized intimate relationships — those that are socially undervalued as well as those that are socially devalued, or stigmatized.     

ALWAYS SINGLE AND SINGLE AGAIN WOMEN: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

What is it like to be a single woman today? Are the experiences of women who have always been single different from those who find themselves single again after having been married? How can family therapists promote the development of single women both individually and relationally? The purpose of this phenomenological, multiple-case study was to investigate perceptions of being single among heterosexual single women between the ages of 30 and 65. Nine focus group interviews and a semistructured, mailed questionnaire were used to collect the data. Constant comparative analyses were used to develop the findings. The findings were organized around the most salient theme that emerged from the analyses: single women have unresolved or unrecognized ambivalences about being single. This overaching theme was supported by three subassertions: (a) single women are aware of both the advantages and the drawbacks of being single; (b) single women are ambivalent about the reasons for their singleness; (c) although content with being single, many women simultaneously experience feelings of loss and grief. Implications for the clinical practice of family therapy and future research on single women are discussed.     

When a Baby Dies: Ambiguity and Stillbirth

ABSTRACT

Stillbirth, or sudden intrauterine death, is in many ways an invisible death. A stillborn infant is one mature enough developmentally to have lived outside the womb but for some reason, or perhaps multiple reasons, was born dead. Stillborn infants are often demarcated from other types of child death and are rarely legitimized as a real loss. When a baby is stillborn, mothers, fathers, surviving siblings, and grandparents may struggle for years to find answers to a series of complex and inherently unanswerable questions. The family members' profound feelings of grief and ambiguity loss are borne in a social environment that denies this reality because the child's death was invisible to most of the world. Boss's framework for understanding ambiguous loss proves quite helpful in thinking about stillbirth.     

Perceptions of survivors of loss by homicide: opportunities for nursing practice

Ten adult family members of homicide victims were recruited to participate in interviews describing their experiences related to the loss of their loved ones. A phenomenological approach was used to guide data collection and analysis, resulting in the identification of four major themes. Participants described intense emotional responses and grief complicated by the suddenness, violence, and intentionality of the homicide; engagement in activities that both buffered the emotional effects of the loss and helped them purposefully integrate it into their lives; the strengthening and dissolution of relationships; and a transformative, perpetually evolving post-homicide experience that was viewed as "healing" and that was influenced by many factors. Implications of these findings for research and nursing practice are discussed.     

Children removed from home by court order: Fathers' disenfranchised grief and reclamation of paternal functions

The study, based on in-depth interviews with 15 fathers in Israel, reports on fathers' emotional reactions to the court-ordered removal of their children from home. The findings show that all the fathers experienced the removal as a traumatic event, which utterly devalued them and annihilated their paternal identity. Although they suffered intense pain and loss well after their children were removed, their grief was disenfranchised as friends and family accused them of allowing the removal to happen. With this, most of the fathers acclimated to the removal and even reported an expansion of their parental identity. The discussion suggests some theoretical conceptualizations of their intense feelings of pain and loss.