“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”
-Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
Experiencing the death of a loved one is inevitable at some point in one’s lifetime. The inevitable death, experiencing and healing from the grief over the death of a loved one needs to be focused on when trying to understand the psychology of death.
Psychologists have conducted various studies, some of which aimed to understand people’s attitudes towards death, death anxiety, and how one moves ahead in life after experiencing the pain of losing a loved one. Herman Feifel, who is considered as a pioneer and the father of the modern death movement penned The Meaning of Death, a collection of essays by psychologists, psychiatrists, theologists, and philosophers. The book provides a holistic overview of death and urges its readers to think critically and reexamine the fundamental beliefs and prejudices held against studying death.
Neimeyer and his colleagues (2004) reviewed various studies that surveyed death anxiety in populations like those of older adults, professional caregivers, people suffering from physical illness and psychological distress, and religion based, to name a few. Some of the reviewed studies reported a positive relationship between the two, while others showed no relationship; this discrepancy was ascribed to have been the result of moderator variables like social support, coping strategies and styles, and religious beliefs. Further, increased social support, approach- and acceptance-based coping strategies, intrinsic religiosity, and a belief in positive afterlife were typically associated with less death anxiety.
To understand the effects of death and dying completely, it is imperative to understand the concept of grief and bereavement. Grief is defined, in simple terms, as the anguish experienced after a significant loss, usually of a beloved person. American-Swiss Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and author David Kessler, in their book On Grief and Grieving, explore the five stages of grief in which may not be experienced in a linear, time-bound fashion by all. The five stages of grief are:
Denial: One experiences numbness, meaninglessness, and is overwhelmed by the loss. Denial and shock helps one cope and makes survival of the griever possible as it paces the feelings of grief.
Anger: The stage of anger brings one closer to healing as it helps one feel their emotions truly. It may act as an anchor, giving temporary structure to the nothingness one may experience. Anger becomes the bridge that helps one connect to the deceased. It is parallel to the intensity of the love one feels for the deceased.
Bargaining: Before one experiences loss, they may bargain with what they believe to be a higher power, conveying that they will do anything to get their loved one spared from mortality. After the loss, bargaining takes the form of a temporary truce. The grieving person gets lost in the series of ‘what if’s’ and ‘if onlys,’ such as ‘what if I just spend my whole life helping others, then can I wake up and realize that all of this is a bad dream?’ and ‘if only we found the tumor earlier, we could have saved him/her.’ Bargaining is often accompanied with guilt, of which, people may go to a great extent to move away from.
Depression: After moving on from what could have been done (bargaining), one’s attention is solely focused on the present and on what is left. This stage may lead the emptiness to come to the forefront, bringing forth the fourth stage of grief, namely depression. Depression is a necessary and appropriate response as the reality of the deceased never coming back sinks in. On the other hand, to not experience depression at the loss of a loved one would be unusual.
Acceptance:. This is not to say that one feels okay or alright with the loss. It can never be about feeling alright. Rather, it is about accepting the fact that the person is physically gone forever and that this new reality is permanent. One starts to find new roles and meanings without forgetting the person they lost. People start growing, evolving, and moving on with life, with love for and memories of the beloved person. They may find new relations and roles in which to share love and be loved. This takes the person close to healing.
Dr. J William Worden, in his book Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy. A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner explored the tasks involved in mourning. The premise of this model is that grief is work and requires motivation, commitment, and active participation. The four tasks are: to accept the reality of loss, to work through the pain of grief, to adjust to the environment in which the deceased is missing, and to emotionally relocate the deceased and move on with life.
Dr. Terry Martin ascribes, in his review of the model, the first task with the search of the deceased as behaviour which extinguishes with the lack of reinforcement. This means that as the person’s search for the deceased does not get fulfilled, the search eventually stops. To complete the first task, the mourner has to accept the loss intellectually and emotionally.
The second task is to experience the pain rather than avoiding it by the use of strategies such as denial or anger.
The third task requires the griever to make external, internal, and spiritual adjustments to their lives. External adjustment entails recognizing the role of the deceased in the griever's life; this can be done by learning new skills, and redefining and finding a new meaning of life. Internal adjustment requires the griever to separate oneself from the deceased and recognize oneself as ‘me’ and not part of a ‘we.’ This can be done by finding answers to questions like ‘Who am I now?’ Finally, spiritual adjustment entails meeting and overcoming the challenges of one’s assumptive world such as questioning if the believed spiritual power actually exists or not.
The fourth task for the griever is to recognise the bond he/she had with the deceased and finding a way to remember the deceased while continuing with their own journey of life. Dr. Worden asserts that the process of grieving is multidimensional, different for everyone, and not time bound (for some individuals, mourning may last a lifetime). He suggests that completing these four tasks is important for healing.
After experiencing these stages and tasks of grief, one comes closer to healing, wherein the loss can neither be reversed, nor can the griever be the same as before. Losses can never be compared and therefore, no loss is big or small. However, it is essential that the griever gives oneself enough time to cope and remember that they will definitely successfully deal with their loss over time.
Divya Mirani
