This study is based upon personal interviews with 47 elderly bereaved parents. These interviews provided us with detailed and extensive information on the bereavement processes that parents experience over a long period of years. From an in-depth content analysis of the interviews and the way the parents described bereavement, it seems that it is a central motif in their lives affecting their relationships with each other, with the living children, with friends, at work and with others. Although enduring grief along the life cycle is an un-patterned process with emotional and cognitive ups and downs, involving a continuous search for a meaning to life, we observed a development in this process throughout the years. As we proposed in a previous study (Malkinson & Bar-Tur, 2000) there are three main identifiable phases in the bereavement process: the immediate, acute phase; grief through the years until aging; and bereavement in old age. We propose to refer to them as the three main phases in the development of parental grieving process and name them “young grief,” “mature grief,” and “aging grief.”
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BowlbyJ. (1980). Attachment and loss: Vol 3. Loss: Sadness and depression. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
2.
CarstensenL. L. (1995). Evidence for a life-span theory of socioemotional selectivity. Current Directions of Psychological Science, 4, 253–258.
3.
CarstensenL. L.LevensonR. W., & GottmanJ. M. (1995). Emotional behavior in long-term marriage. Psychology and Aging, 10, 140–149.
4.
ChristG. H.BonanoG. A.MalkinsonR., & RubinS. (2003). Bereavement experiences after the death of a child. In FieldM. J. & BehrmanR. E. (Eds.), When children die: Improving palliative and end-of-life for children and their families (Appendix E, pp. 553–579). Institute of Medicine, Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
5.
CicirelliV. G. (1995). Loss of siblings through death. In CicirelliV. G. (Ed.), Sibling relationships across the life-span (Ch. 13, pp. 185–199). New York: Plenum Press.
6.
ConwayV., & FeeneyJ. (1997). Attachments and grief: A study of parental bereavement. Journal of Family Studies, 3, 36–42.
7.
DavisB. (1999). Shadows in the sun: Experiences of sibling bereavement in childhood. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor and Francis.
8.
DeFrainJ. (1991). Learning about grief from normal families: SIDS, stillbirths, and miscarriages. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 17, 215–223.
9.
DiehlM.CoyleN., & Labouvie-ViefG. (1996). Age and sex differences in strategies of coping and defense across the life span. Psychology and Aging, 11(1), 127–139.
10.
EdelsteinL. (1984). Mental bereavement. New York: Praeger.
11.
FreudZ. (1917). Trauer und Melancholie (Grief and melancholy). Teredional Zeritschrift fur Artztliche Psychoanalyse, 4, 288–301.
12.
KavanaughF. (1997). Gender differences among parents who experienced the death of an infant weighing less then 500 grams at birth. Omega, 35, 281–296.
13.
KlassD.SilvermanP. R., & NickmanS. L. (1996). Continuing bonds: New understandings of grief. Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis.
14.
LangA., & GottliebL. (1993). Marital intimacy after infant death. Death Studies, 17, 233–256.
15.
LesherE. L., & BergerK. J. (1988). Bereaved elderly mothers: Changes in health, functional activities, family cohesion, and psychological well-being. International Journal of Aging & Human Development, 26, 81–90.
16.
LevavI. (1989–1990). Second thoughts on the lethal aftermath of a loss. Omega, 20, 81–90.
17.
LomranzJ. (1998). An image of aging and the concept ofaintegration: Coping and mental health implications. In LomranzJ. (Ed.), Handbook of aging and mental health: An integrative approach. New York: Plenum Press.
18.
MalkinsonR., & Bar-TurL. (1999). The aging of grief in Israel: A perspective of bereaved parents. Death Studies, 23(6), 413–431.
19.
MalkinsonR., & Bar-TurL. (2000). The aging of grief: Parents' grieving of Israeli soldiers. Journal of Personal & Interpersonal Loss, 5(2–3), 247–262.
20.
MalkinsonR.RubinS., & WitztumE. (2005). Terror, trauma, and bereavement: Implications for theory and therapy. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, Special issue: The trauma of terrorism: Sharing knowledge and shared care, guest edited by DanieliY.BromD., & SillsJ..
21.
MartinT. L., & DokaK. J. (2000). Men don't cry … Women do. Pennsylvania: Brunner/Mazel.
22.
NeidigJ. R., & Dalgas-PelishP. (1991). Parental grieving and perceptions regarding health care professionals' intervention. Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing, 14, 179–191.
23.
NeimeyerR. A. (2001). The language of loss: Grief therapy as a process of meaning reconstruction. In NeimeyerR. A. (Ed.), Meaning reconstruction and the experience of loss (pp. 261–292). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
24.
NeimeyerR. A.KeeseN. J., & FortnerB. (2000). Loss and meaning reconstruction. In MalkinsonR.RubinS., & WitztumE. (Eds.), Traumatic and nontraumatic loss and bereavement: Clinical theory and practice (pp. 173–196). Madison, CT: Psychosocial Press.
25.
PattonM. Q. (1980). Qualitative evaluation methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
26.
RandoT. A. (1983). An investigation of grief and adaptation in parents of children who have died from cancer. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 8(1), 3–20.
27.
RandoT. A. (1993). Treatment of complicated grief. Champaign, Ill: Research Press.
28.
RaphaelB. (1983). The anatomy of bereavement. New York: Basic Books.
29.
RichesG., & DawsonP. (1996). Communities of feelings. Mortality, 1(2), 143–162.
30.
RichesG., & DawsonP. (2000). An intimate loneliness: Supporting bereaved parents and sibling. Philadelphia: Open University Press
31.
RosenH. (1985). Prohibitions against mourning in childhood sibling loss. Omega, 15, 307–316.
32.
RosenblattP. C. (2000). Parent grief: Narretives of loss and relationship. Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel.
33.
RubinS. (1990). Death of the future: An outcome study of bereaved parents in Israel. Omega, 20(4), 323–339.
34.
RubinS. (1992). Adult child loss and the Two Track Model of Bereavement. Omega, 24(3), 183–202.
35.
RubinS. (1999). The Two-Track Model of Bereavement: Overview, retrospect and retrospect. Death Studies, 23(8), 681–714.
36.
RubinS. (2000). Psychodynamic perspectives on treatment with the bereaved: Modifications of the therapeutic/transference paradigm. In MalkinsonR.RubinS., & WitztumE. (Eds.), Traumatic and nontraumatic loss and bereavement: Clinical theory and practice (pp. 117–141). Madison, CT: Psychosocial Press.
37.
RubinS., & MalkinsonR. (2001). Parental response to child loss across the life-cycle: Clinical and research perspectives. In StroebeM.HanssonR.StroebeW., & SchutH. (Eds.), Handbook of bereavement research: Consequences, coping and care (pp. 219–240). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Press.
38.
RubinS.MalkinsonR., & WitztumE. (2003). Trauma and bereavement: Conceptual and clinical issues revolving around relationships. Death Studies, 27, 1–27.
39.
SchwabR. (1996). Gender differences in parental grief. Death Studies, 20(2), 103–114.
40.
SchwabR. (1998). A child's death and divorce: Dispelling the myth. Death Studies, 22(5), 445–468.
41.
ValliantG. E. (2002). Aging well. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
