Coping with the Loss of a Family Member: Implications for Community-Level Research and Intervention

Abstract

focus on how people react to the loss of an immediate family member, with special emphasis on reactions to sudden, traumatic loss / explore how such losses are perceived and reacted to by those who have endured the loss, and also by those in their social environment / maintain that even when they experience troubling symptoms that may be caused by the trauma, people who lose a family member are unlikely to seek help from community mental health services as a society, we hold strong beliefs about the appropriate ways to cope with loss / these beliefs are so powerful and so pervasive that they have exerted a strong influence on research and intervention in the area / these beliefs have caused a variety of problems for those who have endured a major loss / [provide] a brief description of these cultural beliefs / explore the research evidence bearing on these assumptions, drawing from our own research program as well as studies completed by others / discuss the implications of these beliefs for how the bereaved are treated (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)