Grief Therapy with the Elderly

Grief Therapy with the Elderly

2007

Most people emerge from the natural grieving process in a healthy manner . However , many people do not receive the support they need to overcome the pain of mourning . They feel they are trapped in their grief-feelings which later surface as the underlying cause of physical and mental problems . For these people mental health treatment is their way back to a healthy life

Morbid grief has been referred to in the literature as complicated grief , unresolved or exaggerated grief , or pathological grief . Morbid grief reactions

can be defined in different ways : by depth of despair or reaction and time . Morbid grief reactions that are defined by time include those situations in which the survivor has not been able to adapt to the loss , has had an exaggerated or prolonged grief response has not been able to modify his or her self-image around the loss , and has remained rooted in the death experience with depression and anger (Kastenbaum , 2001 Worden , 2002 . The level of despair that signals morbid grief may be unrelated to time this aspect of morbid grief is defined as a constellation of symptoms (Lindemann , 1944

The classic work on morbid grief was written by Erich Lindemann (1944 a psychiatrist who observed the bereavement behaviors of 101 patients during a series of psychiatric interviews in a clinic that he had set up following a fire in the Coconut Grove nightclub in Boston . He concluded that there were five characteristics of those suffering with normal grief : somatic distress , preoccupations with the image of the deceased guilt , hostile reactions , and loss of patterns of conduct . A sixth reaction , seen in those bing on morbid or pathological grief , is the appearance of traits of the deceased in the behavior of the bereaved . He stressed that successful completion of bereavement involved grief work aimed at helping the bereaved adjust to the environment without the deceased and give expression to the pain of the loss

Morbid grief is a distortion of normal grief with symptoms that include overactivity without a sense of loss which may include expansiveness and replication of the behaviors of the deceased the acquisition of behaviors related to the illness of the deceased a recognized medical disease with a psychosomatic origin a major alteration in relationships to friends and relatives with avoidance of social interactions lack of interest and critical attitudes furious hostility against specific persons wooden and formal appearance which often covers the hostility loss of patterns of social interaction actions detrimental to one 's own social and economic existence and agitated depression with tension insomnia , feelings of worthlessness , bitter self-accusation , and punishment (Lindemann , 1944

One of the issues that affects the family system is the increase in the elderly bereaved population . While the maximum age for human beings has not increased significantly in recent time , the number of people living into their 70s and 80s has grown and will continue to grow into the 21st Century . With this increase comes a larger number of...