In her book, "Grief: The Mourning After. Dealing with Adult Bereavement," Sanders (1989) notes that there are many instances when grief and bereavement are accompanied by feelings of guilt. The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the various instances when these feelings are related to one another. Specifically, the paper examines several types of guilt reaction to grief. These include instances of: ambivalent introjection, causal guilt, and survivor's guilt. The discussion begins with a delineation of guilt as an adaptive response to bereavement and an examination of how this adaptive response can turn psychopathological.
When the death of a loved one occurs, most people will, to varying degrees, experience some feelings of guilt. A widow for example, may spend long periods of time sitting beside the death-bed of her terminally ill husband. Yet, if the husband dies while she is out of the hospital, in addition to feeling grief, she may also feel guilty.
However, for some people, the experience of guilt can lead to long-lasting and serious consequences. This is especially true if while searching for reasons for the death, a person uncovers an element of personal responsibility for the occurrence of the death.
Sanders provides an example of this kind of guilt in the case of a widow whose husband had a history of asthma attacks. Because every time he had these attacks, he had been taken to the hospital and quickly and successfully treated, the last time he had an attack (the one that killed him), his wife took her time in preparing to take him to the hospital.
She even fixed herself a cup of coffee. Thus, when her husband died while they were driving to the hospital, she felt her delay was contributive to his death; no doubt, it was.
The guilt this widow felt regarding her last interaction as well as her last moments with her husband (driving him to the hospital knowing that he was dead) began, how...