Developmental stages of grief and bereavement.

Dead head
Artwork by Janelle Rainer, courtesy of the Grief Diaries.

People incur losses in their lives and the process of undergoing such a normal process is called grief (Hamilton, 2016). Death, for instance, is a loss that affects people in different ways and may have both physical and mental responses towards the loss. After death, the bereavement period is when people grief during the mourning period of a loss. During the bereavement time also, an individual is often affected by emotional stress, and in worst scenarios, the situation may be permanent for some people that they end up with grief forever.

Development of Grief and bereavement in adolescence

Having grief at this stage takes a lot because it will determine the shape of the future an adolescent will have based on the death of a parent or close relatives. In adolescence also, individuals are likely to struggle while grieving and this is a different case as compared to adults because of the different developmental stages that require a new emotional understanding of each step, which may be a problem to some. Adolescence has some major stages and each is understood differently.

Teenagers react differently to grief in the various adolescent development stages of life. The early and middle stages of adolescence portray similar bereavement signs when dealing with grief. In these stages, to accept the death of a family member comes with a different task that is added to dealing with the loss. After the mourning period as a way of grieving, adolescents face the issue of creating new relationships with people close to the one who passed on and overcoming other problems and barriers in developing other relationships as well.

 Middle-aged adolescents are also at great risk because they face withdrawal symptoms. After all, they see an uncertain future without people they regarded as important in their lives. It usually brings a problem of having an unclear picture of how the future life will be and they even start fearing death upon themselves (Dougherty, 2016). In the late adolescent stage, teenagers are victims of stress and this puts them at a greater risk. These emotional feelings affect a bereaved adolescent which may cause rejection and abandonment. Emotions are a stronger stage and are a risky situation, especially in adolescents.

Development of Grief and bereavement in adulthood

Adulthood is strongly related to grief because age comes with a lot of losses. Adults have families, which includes the spouse and children. Losing a spouse, child, or a parent as an adult comes with so much grief of such moments. However, adults are at a better place because they understand life, where they understand how best to cope up with bereavement moments in remembering and burying a bereaved person who is much closer (Shear et al., 2017). Although, some people do not like grieving when adults because they understand such a situation clearly. 

As adult age, there comes a time when people develop chronic diseases and other psychiatric disorders. Adulthood at a young age can help one to overcome a bereavement easily and forget it but once old, a person may find it difficult to deal with grief easily and forget the death of a close person. For instance, a 70-year-old couple who have been married for 50 years have complicated disorders, and losing a spouse may worsen the situation of the illness because these are people who have spent their life together.

Adolescence is the most difficult stage of dealing with grief

 Adolescents are you people who have a great risk of not having a bright future once they are affected with grief over time. In the middle adolescent stage, adolescents here are at a high risk of withdrawing from a family after losing an important person in their lives. For example, if one loses a parent, adolescents fear becoming independent and worry much about their future in turn. At such a stage, people need to be close to adolescents who may fall into stress and interfere with their coming future. Much intervention needs to be done so that when people are adults, they have a clear understanding of how to deal with a bereavement.

Role of mental health workers in understanding culture and spirituality in development stages

Mental health workers play a vital role in helping people recover from a loss related to a bereavement. Some people's culture allows them to mourn their loved ones in their way, and health workers should respect this. After some time, culture may at times keep people mourning deaths forever and this is where mental health workers come in. Individuals will always need their culture to be respected and understood at the same time. After understanding this, social health workers come up with suggestions on how to deal with the grief which has worked and helped people to resume their normal lives (Oka et al., 2017).

Conclusion

Grief and bereavement show differently in the different stages of life, childhood, adolescent stage, adulthood, and old age. Adolescents will find it difficult to deal with grief while adults know how to deal with such situations. Therefore, social health workers intervene and come up with better ways of dealing with grief at different stages of life.

When dealing with life, a lot comes to mind that makes a person sad and unhappy. Great for small the problem may be. The problem has a standard formula; something is desired and seemingly unattainable or there is excess delay in the attainment or something was lost and one just realized it's importance. It could be a friend, a job, a lover, money, I could be anything. Depression is one of the oldest feelings, as old as happiness itself. It's cure is to see what you have and be grateful for it or just get antidepressant which is no less effective.

References

Dougherty, J. E. (2016). School counselors' perceptions of preparedness for counseling and supporting students dealing with grief and complicated grief. Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Hamilton, I. J. (2016). Understanding grief and bereavement. Br J Gen Pract, 66(651), 523-523.

Oka, T., Hussin, N. A. M., & Hagström, A. S. (2017). The diversity of indigenous wisdom on grief: Exploring social work approaches to bereavement. In IAFOR International Conference on the Social Sciences, Honolulu, HI, USA. Retrieved from https://papers. iafor. org/submission33556.

Shear, K., Reynolds, C., Simon, N., & Zisook, S. (2017). Grief and bereavement in adults: clinical features. Waltham, MA, Uptodate (Accessed 17.11. 2017).