Grief Versus Traumatic Grief
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Jan 9, 2024
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Grief Versus Traumatic Grief (Obj. 7.1 and 7.2)
Lila Matthews
College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Grand Canyon University
PCN 670 Development through Childhood and Adolescence
Instructor: Angela Ramirez Herrera
August 30, 2023
Introduction
Bereavement consists of a period of time for an individual to grieve after the loss of a
person by death (Medline Plus, 2017).
When experiencing a loss, bereavement allows for the
individual to experience thew wide range of emotions that come along with it when adjusting to
the idea that you will no longer physically see the individual you use to seeing on occasions. This
experience can be rough on any individual but especially a child when they are very close to the
person that they are mourning. When a child does not understand what death truly is yet or has
experienced death at a rate that they do not understand it can be quite discerning. This report
will examine the difference between what the normal grieving process should somewhat look
like for a child or adolescent that have stress- related disorders that range from uncomplicated,
complicated, and traumatic grieving experiences. Furthermore, we will look at how traumatic
grief can be or
may have on a child’s growth
and development, we also will look at the the
identification and
assessments that can be used to evaluate and analyze the condition the child
is suffering from a loss.
Stress Related Disorders Vs. The Normal Grieving Process
The grieving process can look a lot different a child or a teenager than it actually would
for an adult. Some children never experience death until their teenage years. This is something
that a parent must pay attention to when a child or a teenager experiences death from a loved
one and how they take it or handle it. An example of this would be a preschooler who watches
cartoon and games thinking that once a person dies that the persona will come back to life. As a
child grows and the world changes around them, a child begins to understand death and the
situations that come along with it, but children are still in denial for the idea that death will
come to their favorite people such as their parents and or siblings. When it comes to death it is
important and normal for a child to be able to have conversations and conversations wrapped
around what death is and how people pass on. This is a way for a child to understand and
except death as a way of life and what it is for them. “A four- or five-year-old might resume
playing following the death as if nothing distressing has happened. Such behavior reflects the
cognitive and emotional; capacity of the child and does not mean that the death did not have
an impact” (Osterweis et.al., 1984). A parent must observe their child during this crucial time of
the loss of someone due to that fact that if they do not pay attention and support the child
during the loss, the child may display some abnormalities of emotional and behavioral changes.
A sudden or unexpected loss for a child who does not understand or know what death is and is
experiencing it for the first time may develop disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) or Acute Stress Disorder.
The Difference Between Uncomplicated, Complicated, and Traumatic Grief
When dealing with uncomplicated grief it is considered a normal reaction to loss.
“Complicated grief is a more intense and prolonged reaction to loss that interferes with a
person's ability to function. Traumatic grief is a reaction to loss complicated by the addition of a
traumatic event.” (Andriessen et al. 2019). The main dissimilarity with complicated grief and
other forms of grieving techniques this form of grieving has a shorter time window. “Grieving
people experience denial, rage, bargaining, despair, and acceptance.” (Andriessen et al. 2019).
Nevertheless, an individual that goes through the grieving process, go through it in a way where
they process through each of these stages, and it take anywhere from weeks to months of
grieving. Mind you each individual and how they get through these different transitioning stages
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of grief is up to them on when they are ready to move on with their lives. Depending on how
close the person that is grieving to the person who has died it might cause for them to have
some challenges on managing their grief, especially if they are dealing with trauma as well that
often appears to follow with the loss of a person.
Trauma with loss tends to have an effect of a
wide range of experiences, like the passing of a loved one, the passing of a family pet, being the
victim of a violent crime, being a part of a heinous car accident, living through a natural disaster,
or seeing the death of a loved one play out through forms of situations like cancer.
The Development of Traumatic Grief on Childhood and Adolescent
Grieving is the proper way for a child to be able to handle things like the loss of a person,
death, and being a distance away from people that they love and care about. During this
duration of time, the child is going to process and handle the situation at different stages then
an adult might handle the grieving process. For a child or even a teenager experiences death for
the first time can be a lot different, complication, and drawn-out process that may have a lot
more steps or stages in the process of them trying to understand what has transpired. These
stages tend to be expressed in the form of
denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally
acceptance. “Grief in childhood and adolescence is mainly guided by the typical stages of
growth and development in a person's life.” (Revet, A. et al., 2020).
When assessing for these conditions we have to be able to look at what is transpiring
and what we should look for in the normal stage so for grief for a child who is experiencing it for
the first time.
Stage 1 Denial: The person grieving has a tendency to dismiss how they feel, deny that the
persona is actually past when someone has told them that they have, or make it seem that they
are unbothered by the passing in order to cope with the grieving process.
Stage 2 Anger: A person in this stage will have a tendency to be angry but also no sure on how
to channel the energy for why they are angry. They may be angry at the person that they have
lost, their spiritual beliefs, and the ones that are emotionally supporting them through their
time of grief. This is one stage or form that a person who does not understand may handle and
look at death in a way to come into acceptance of why the death took place.
Stage 3 Bargaining: In this stage a person will try to a lot themselves that amount of time that it
will take them to grieve the loss of a person. That they feel it is time for them to move on or
that they will not cry when it comes to going to the funeral since they have taken the time to do
it when they first heard the loss of the person took place. This is due to the fact that they are
afraid they will harp in the situation and not move on with their lives.
Stage 4 Depression or mourning: When a person has lost someone close to them or
experienced an unexpected death, they hit a wall of depression due to this loss being so
detrimental and devastating to their consciousness. This is the stage where the individual
believes that nothing else is important to them or matter or that their life is over since they no
longer have this person physically in their life anymore. This is the time that is crucial because
they are not able to decipher their emptions in a way of knowing that everything is going to be
okay. This is also a very unhealthy and unsafe stage where the person much be watched and
have certain things addressed in case the depression gets out of hand.
Stage 6, The final stage Acceptance: This is when the individual has come to realization and
understanding of the loss, they are feeling better about what has transpired. They have now
fully been able to process the loss of their loved one and they can understand what has
happened. This is the stage where they now feel that they can continue on with life. They still
may be sad at time but they are just going through experiences of missing a loved one.
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Reference:
Andriessen, K., Krysinska, K., Hill, N., Reifels, L., Robinson, J., Reavley, N., & Pirkis, J.
(2019). Effectiveness of interventions for people bereaved through suicide: a systematic
review of controlled studies of grief, psychosocial and suicide-related outcomes.
BMC
Psychiatry,
Osterweis, M., Solomon, F. and Green, M., 1984.
Bereavement During Childhood and
Adolescence
. Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Available at:
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK217849/>
U.S. National Library of Medicine. (2017).
Bereavement
. MedlinePlus.
https://medlineplus.gov/bereavement.html
Revet, A., Bui, E., Benvegnu, G., Suc, A., Mesquida, L., & Raynaud, J. P. (2020). Bereavement
and reactions of grief among children and adolescents: Present data and
perspectives.