Talk:Grief

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[edit] Some

"Some researchers such as Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and others have posited sequential stages including shock and numbness, denial, anger, depression and resolution." - I thought Kübler-Ross's stages were denial, anger, bargaining, depression and accceptance? Just off the top of my head... -Unregistered Anon. user

Aside from concurring with the previous commenter, wouldn't it be helpful to mention Viktor_Frankl and especially his Man's_Search_for_Meaning?

Maybe, and maybe one should read this excerpt of the book, too. It shows how willful imagination can overcome reality [1].

I read that loss of ideals can cause grief too in the scholarly (or scientific, I dunno the exact difference) book the Emotions by professor Nico Frijda of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. Andries 14:39, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "aphrodisiac"

I deleted the sentence "Grief is one of nature's most powerful aphrodisiac." Such a provocative statement should be credibly cited. IMDB's page for the movie "Wedding Crashers" is far from an appropriate citation.

[edit] "dabda"

I too am wondering how DABDA plays into this and from whom it originated. (A wikipedia search for "DABDA" found nothing) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 158.48.6.9 (talk • contribs) 17:23, 24 Jun 2005.

Elsabeth Kubler-Ross creating DABDA as the 5 stages of grief is included as common myth about the 5 stages in an article by Counseling for Loss (whoever they are). Smylers

[edit] Clarity of stages section

Kubler-Ross spoke of sequential stages, and that is made clear from the text. However, the information about the newer model omits whether the items listed are considered sequential, overlapping, or may occur in any order or even not at all. Could someone who knows please add that information. Mapping the Kubler-Ross stages, which may be more familiar to some people (such as me) onto the newer model might be helpful as well.

[edit] 5 stages

This article should include the 5 stages of grief. Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance.

I think it would be quite helpful

192.153.23.100 22:25, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

These were included, under "stages". They have been criticized, but they're 'common knowledge', so I'll try and make them a little more prominent. NcLean 14th September 2006

[edit] Unlikely

"The most common loss in our society of a loved one is that of the death of a spouse" Seems highly unlikely, given that each human will have two parents, who are likely to die within the individual's lifetime, whereas only one person per couple would have a chance of experiencing death-of-a-spouse. So I've removed this statement. NcLean 14th September 2006

[edit] Hello Grief Editors:

I'm requesting that you consider this ebook as a possible link from this page.

Grieving the loss of a child - ebook
Evolving Through Grief: A Mother’s Guide to Healing After the Loss of Her Child.
http://www.soundfeelings.com/products/ebooks/grief_loss.htm


Thank you, Howard Richman

[edit] Thank you, Grief Editors

This is a very beautiful work you have done on Grief (grieving processes). thanks. Austerlitz 88.72.4.77 13:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3rd paragraph looks like a copy paste

3rd paragraph looks like a copy paste from grief.net, sentences like "At The Grief Recovery Institute [www.grief.net] we have been working with grieving people for 27 years." are pretty unencyclopedic. I also dont agree about not being a single thing in common between grieving people, because they are all unique... Sure they are all unique, and they would experience things differently, but there is a lot in common too... (looks to me more like advertisement for that site, convincing people that they focus on each person specificially, and dont try any "silver bullet" solution) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.55.195.217 (talk) 14:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC).

Gentlemen; I do not wish to edit your page. I merely wish for you to re-examine your original document. People have been experiencing the normal and natural feelings called grief since the beginning of time. It is only in the past 60+ years that any concept of stages have been published. The two main authors are John Bowlby and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Bowlby's work on attachment and loss dealt mainly with children's reactions and in no way ever professed that the stages were clear cut enough to be applied to all. Kubler-Ross's work never pertained to grieving people follow a loss. In both case the research focused primarily on death as the causitive event. This ignores the 40+ other losses that are common to the human experience. With your assistance;

Hopefully we can put to rest the stage theory for grief once and for all. For accurate information please see An Empirical Examination of the Stage Theory of Grief - JAMA Feb. 23, 2007. See Results Section: RESULTS “Counter to stage theory, disbelief (denial) was not the initial dominant grief indicator.” From the Comments Section of the Yale Bereavement Study we find, "the temporal course of the absolute levels of the 5 grief indicators did not follow that proposed by the stage theory of grief" For more accurate information for your articles please see "Mortality after Bereavement: – A Prospective Study of 95,647 Widowed Persons. It appeared in the March, 1987, Vol. 77, No. 3, edition of The American Journal of Public Health. The 95,647 widowed persons were observed for 225,251 person-years. In this, most extesnxive study ever done, there is not a single mention of any stages of grief.

Claiming to be a source for valid information requires that your information be valid. It is not enough to have an opinion and the ability to publish it.

A truly careful reading of Bowlby's work will show that his stages were not experienced by all nor were they experienced in the same manner by any of subjects studied. After 30 years of working with the breaved I can tell you that only "numbness," seems to be consistent with the majority of grievers. Even then the period of numbness is unique to each person.

I would further like to share comments from personal conversations with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. At the International Convention of The Compassionate Friends in Philadelphia, Elizabeth said, “If I’d known the problems that would arise from people misinterpreting and misusing the stages a dying person goes through [by applying it to the survivors], I wouldn’t have published the book in the first place.”

During a later and humorous conversation Elizabeth shared that she believed that her first stage, “Denial has become the most misused word in the English language.”

Finally, as it relates to all stage theory ideas I would ask each of you to simply do a test. Take a person who is 6'4" tall and who weighs 250 pounds. Sit them down next ot someone who is 5'2" tall and who weighs 100 pounds. Then read the directins on the back of an aspirin bottle. If you truly believe that both should take 2 aspirins to relieve the same headache then you will continue to believe in stage theory. And no amount of truth will change your mind.

For your consideration,

John W. James Founder The Grief Recovery Institute

[edit] Missing my Mother

It has been 1 month to the day since my mother died. I miss her & would do anything to have back one hour to tell her everything I didn't say. No matter what your reletionship with your mother, call her once a week, even just to say hi. It's a regret that I am having a hard time living with. Allison

[edit] References

why are there no references in this article?

SOFIXIT.--Ziji Image:Baby_tao.jpg (talk email) 21:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Normal vs. Complicated paragraph

This paragraph seems to put suicide as a positive solution to emotional pain and/or suffering. Whether Wikipedia thinks the whole world should go kill themselves or not, It should be put in a more Neutral light. LIMEY 22:54, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grief and bereavement counseling

I am propsoing to start a new article with that title, rather than add a section to this one. What do you think?--Ziji Image:Baby_tao.jpg (talk email) 21:55, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opinion?

This line:

Many forms of what we term 'mental illness' have loss as their root, but are covered by many years and circumstances this often goes unnoticed.

requires citation and I believe is an opinion, not fact. Cached 10:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Compassionate Friends quote in Sibling Section

I question the use of Compassionate Freinds quote in the Sibling Loss section. The quote makes it seem like Compassionate Freinds thinks Sibling loss is the worst type of loss. I find it even more questionable since Compassionate Freinds is a group devoted primarily to the loss of one's child, not sibling. -- Joseph Harper —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.211.94.119 (talk) 23:58, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links

External links to patient support groups (especially online chat boards), blogs, and fundraising groups normally not accepted on Wikipedia. Also, to prevent a proliferation of links, it's good to avoid more than one link to any website. Please read the external links policy (and perhaps the specific rules for medical articles) and considering reviewing the long list of external links in this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:41, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I've cleaned this up. this article's primary audience shouldn't be considered to be those in need of counseling and support, but I can see why many people think it's important to have somewhere for people who need support to turn to. Still, we can't reasonably list all the support groups that would be useful, so I've put in a link to the Dmoz category on grief, loss and bereavement. If there's a better category (or a more authoritative but equally broad directory) we should replace it.
There were only a few links that weren't to support centers - the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement link looked like it would be good, but the site just lists things people would have to pay for, so doesn't really meet our guidelines as that's not much use to a regular reader. The "Your Friend’s Loved One Just Died - Here’s How To Help"] wasn't actually about grief itself at all, and appears to have been added as part of a promotion of the website.
I left one link, The Emotions of Grief During A Breakup article. I'm not that keen on it but it seemed like the most appropriate of the links there! It seems to be written by someone with credentials and experience in the subject area, but she doesn't appear to be a well respected expert in the field in her own right (for instance I couldn't find her cited by Journals), and it's a blog posting (i.e. it hasn't been peer reviewed or through any other sort of rigorous process to ensure it's good information). So I think it's quite questionable. If other editors don't think it should be there I wouldn't protest it going. -- SiobhanHansa 15:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)