Death and the family

The death of a loved one is one of the most traumatic events that can strike a family. The effects of such a tragedy are long lasting and deep-seated. In fact, some experts say that it is

unlikely that anyone ever fully recovers from the death of a family member. In this paper we will examine the emotional and psychological problems of surviving family members in the aftermath of a death. We will specifically look at the different dynamics of parents' loss of a child and children's loss of a parent or a sibling.

When a child dies, it may be years before the parents can resume normal lives, if, indeed, they ever manage to do so. The extremity of parents' grief is partly due to the fact that we live in a child-centered society, in which parents are preoccupied with child rearing and take great pride in their child's development. In such a society, a child's death seems unnatural and inappro- priate. There is no context into which the parents can place the event, thus making it more difficult to accept and prolonging the grief process. The death of a child represents the loss of a future, with all of its joys and sorrows yet inexperienced, and this causes special problems for the parents (Knapp, 1987, p. 60).

Surviving parents share certain characteristics. First,

they exhibit an overwhelming desire never to forget anything about the child. They develop a need to talk about both the child and their pain, but they may be unable to do s

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se child died suddenly also typically experience an enormous amount of rage. Dr. Bessel zan der Kollk of the Massachusetts Mental Health Clinic believes that this rage must be externalized in some constructive fashion in order for healing to occur. He cites Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD), as a good example of positively channeled externalized rage (Gelman, p. 23). If a child dies before or very soon after birth, the parents run the risk of not being able to form healthy bonds with subsequent children. The anger and grief associated with the dead child can easily be transferred to a new baby. In extreme cases this transfer of feelings can lead to child abuse. Similarly, parents may feel guilty about loving the new child as much or more than the one who died, and this can cause them to try to deny their feelings of attachment and make them unable to give fully to the later child (Forman & Lowenburg Forman, 1988, p. 115). Parents in this situation may also go to the other extreme and form inappro-priately clinging bonds to the subsequent children, becoming over-protective and placing serious constraints on their development. Similarly, some parents try to make the surviving or subsequent child take on the dead child's role, th

Category: Psychology - D