Bereavement, Grief, and Mourning

The word bereavement is the noun form derived from the verb bereave, an Old English word that first appeared in 888 C.E. in King Alfred's translation of The Consolations of Philosophy. Since around the year 1650 the term bereft has referred to loss of immaterial possessions such as life and hope, whereas bereaved denotes a loss of a significant other such as a relative through death. The term bereavement is used to denote a condition of being bereaved or deprived.

Grief has multiple meanings, all of which deal with the subject of hardship, suffering, injury, discomfort, mental pain, and sorrow. The earliest citation for grief as some form of hardship or suffering is found in Middle English used in the year 1225; grief in the sense of sorrow as a result of loss or personal tragedy first appeared in Middle English in 1350.

The word mourning, derived from the verb mourn, first appeared in the same Old English manuscript in which bereave was used. To mourn is to express one's grief, to lament someone's death, to experience sorrow, grief, or regret.

Dimensions of Bereavement

Bereavement has a holistic or multidimensional impact. Scholars from philosophy, psychology, sociology, and psychiatry point out that bereavement manifests itself physically, emotionally, behaviorally, cognitively, interpersonally, and spiritually. The following examples serve to illustrate:

• Physically • a bereaved person may experience fatigue, chills, and diarrhea.
• Emotionally • a bereaved person may feel guilt, anxiety, loneliness, and fear.
• Behaviorally • a bereaved person may experience bouts of crying and may have trouble sleeping and eating.
• Cognitively • a bereaved person may have difficulty concentrating and remembering and may be flooded with intrusive images and thoughts.
• Interpersonally • a bereaved person may remain isolated from others, may find others uncomfortable in his or her presence, and may lash out unpredictably at others.
• Spiritually • a bereaved person may question the meaning of existence, lose hope, and feel adrift in the world.

The contributions of two scholars, namely Sigmund Freud and John Bowlby, dominate Western cultural thinking about bereavement, grief, and mourning. Since the mid-20th century most writing on bereavement, grief, and mourning emerges from responses to Freud, Bowlby, or both. Freud's seminal paper, translated as “Mourning and Melancholia,” involved his efforts to delineate more carefully what today is referred to as clinical depression. Freud compared and contrasted the normal responses to irreparable loss that are found in grief to the pathological responses found in clinical depression. For Freud, when we have a deep emotional investment in another person and that person dies, we engage in denial, not accepting that loss, and fight against relinquishing our emotional investment. Bereavement resolution involves intense, gradual work to demonstrate that the loss occurred and to free one from the emotional attachment placed in the deceased person.

Freud posed that bereavement recovery requires three arduous tasks. First, it is essential to encounter all reminders of the deceased so that eventually they don't produce emotional pangs. Second, it is imperative that one detach emotionally from the person who has died. Third, it is important to construct an emotionally neutral mental representation of the deceased that makes possible remembering the person without suffering the distress of bereavement. Freud's depiction of dealing with bereavement has become known as “grief work.”

...