Bereavement is the state of having suffered a loss. To be bereaved means to have the personal experience of loss. Customarily, the term bereavement is used in reference to death loss yet by definition is not exclusive to that, because as explained below, non-death losses give rise to bereavement as well. For this reason, any particular trauma (e.g., a sexual assault, being caught in a natural disaster, or a serious car accident) can leave a survivor with loss(es) of control, predictability, meaning, security, trust, invulnerability, or safety, to name only some possible ones. While discussion in this entry is largely restricted to bereavement through death of a loved one, the points made below can be extrapolated to nondeath bereavements.

Interestingly, the words bereave and rob each ...

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