Week 11: Non-Death Loss and Grief

Question 1

The Assumptive World

Answer 1

-A worldwide grounded in previous experience.
-“The assumptions, or beliefs, that ground, secure, and orient people, that give a sense of reality, meaning, or purpose to life”
Janoff-Bulman
-A perception of reality
-The world is benevolent (the world is a good place)
-The world is meaningful (things make sense)
-The self is worthy (we are good people)
Loss can shatter a person’s assumptive world.
Grief can be a process where that world is rebuilt.

Question 2

Non-Death Losses

Answer 2

-Loss & Grief are typically associated with death-related losses.
-We suffer many more non-death losses in our lifetimes
-These can provoke a sense of identity crisis
-Non-death losses are often disenfranchised.
-The impact is frequently unrecognized.
-No rituals associated.

Question 3

Grief & Non-Death Loss

Answer 3

Grief: distress that occurs when an individual’s existing assumptive world is lost because of a significant life-changing event.
-May grieve sense of safety, identity, familiarity, our hopes for the future, loss of connection with another (relationship between love and grief).
-Nondeath losses can be very difficult to name, describe or validate.

Question 4

Tangible Losses

Answer 4

a death, the loss of a job, the loss of a home, a relationship.

Question 5

Intangible Losses

Answer 5

the loss of hope and dreams for the future, change in self-worth, sense of safety or control
Infertility may involve the tangible loss of a pregnancy (miscarriage) and the intangible loss of hopes/dreams of becoming a parent, raising a child.

Question 6

Grief continued

Answer 6

Is a highly personal, individual experience
-Can have emotional, psychological, physical manifestations
-Can be associated with increased risk of illness
-May lead you to seek out the familiar as a form of reassurance.

Question 7

Nonfinite Loss/ Living Loss

Answer 7

-Losses that are enduring and experienced (physically/emotionally) in an ongoing manner.
-Original event precipitates additional tangible and/or intangible losses.
-Not necessarily related to a loss within a relationship.

Question 8

The Assumptive World/ Sense of self

Answer 8

-That life has certain chronology
-That the world is a safe place
-My quality of life will always be the same
-Belief in peoples goodness
-I can rely on others/ people are dependable.

Question 9

Chronic Sorrow

Answer 9

-Describes the affective condition of grief related to an ongoing loss.
-Ongoing discrepancy between what was expected/hoped for and the reality of the situation
-Often disenfranchised
-Uncertainty around the end/no foreseen end
-The loss is ongoing, so the grief associated in ongoing.
Example: Grief experienced by a partner when the significant other receives a diagnosis of dementia

Question 10

Nonfinite loss

Answer 10

the ongoing loss itself

Question 11

chronic sorrow definition

Answer 11

the affective (emotional) response to the nonfinite loss.

Question 12

Ambiguous Loss

Answer 12

Pauline Boss (1999): loss that defines closure in which the status of a loved one as ‘there’ or ‘not there’ remains indefinitely unclear…. the uncertainty makes ambiguous loss the most distressful of all losses.

Physically absent, psychologically present
-missing persons
-incarcerated persons
-children who have been adopted, living in foster care

Physically present, psychologically absent
-Persons with dementia, Alzheimers disease
-Emotionally unavailable family members/ partners.

Question 13

Additional Characteristics

Answer 13

Uncertainty is what is most difficult
-Situation is ongoing, indeterminate.
-Lack of rituals, social validation, ways of responding.
-No funeral, no gravesite, no death. The person is just gone or they are still there.
-People feel frozen in grief
-Conflict between hope and reality
-Often disenfranchised

Question 14

What can be helpful

Answer 14

-Recognizing and validating the loss that has taken place, the persons feelings about the loss.
-Don’t try to ‘fix’ what can’t be fixed
-Be present, supportive.
-Validate feelings
-community supports, grief groups

Question 15

Missing Persons in Canada

Answer 15

2020: 29,645 missing persons reports filed
-37 abductions by strangers
-2,774 ‘wandered off’
-4,955 runaway
-18,329 unknown
61% of missing adult reports in 2020 were removed within 24 hours, while 89% were removed within a week
Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
-Thousands of Indigenous women and girls in Canada have gone missing or been murdered in recent decades.

Question 16

Missing Persons

Answer 16

-Usually there is a focus on the event.
-Attention to finding the missing, responding to violence.
-Little attention to the ongoing experiences of grief, loss of family and friends (those left behind).
-Loss is often not recognized
-Families may experience guilt, self-blame
-Constant and ongoing anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, numbness.
-Can lead to conflict in the family
-Feelings may not ease with time
Families feel pressured to accept that a death has taken place, without evidence.

Question 17

Migration & Disappearance

Answer 17

Each year, thousands of migrants dissappear and die while making the journey across borders.
Estimates in CA/MX/US corridor that ++70,000 people have disappeared.

Question 18

Effect of Long-Term Disappearance on Families

Answer 18

-Disappearance undermines meaning-making
Ambiguity & Uncertainty: Not dead, not alive. Not knowing
-Difference in approach within families. Pressure on families to get ‘over it’
no grief rituals
Emotional and physical effects.

Question 19

Support Groups, Building Community

Answer 19

-Sharing similar experiences, reduces feelings of isolation, can come to identity this as a social problem.
-Validation, support, space to share stories in a supportive environment
-Build capacity to live with grief not get over grief
-Loss is recognized as significant, not just something that a person ‘gets over’.