On Saturday during the educational sessions for the 100th Anniversary of the New England Institute, Carol Wogrin of the National Center for Death Education finally set me straight on grief. Like so many people who learned the "basics" long ago, concepts like the Kubler-Ross stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, accpetance), "letting go", "resolving grief" etc. all fall into the category of urban myth or wrong-headed and out of date clinical frameworks.
For instance, Kubler-Ross wrote a book called "On Death and Dying" which dealt with the specific topic of dealing with the tragedy of death and coming to grips with impending death. Unfortunately the popular media expanded the "stages" to encompass all forms of grief and loss. As a matter of fact, wikipedia.com makes the same mistake by describing her work as "the process by which people deal with grief and tragedy".
However Carol pointed out that in reality grief does not ever fully "resolve" itself. Over time we may find a place for it which does not interupt our daily lives. We may do a good job of creating new meaning for our lives which keeps the grief at bay most of the time. In the end, loss is loss and it stays with us and researchers such as Robert Neimeyer, Stroeb and Schut, and George Bonanno among others provide a much better framework of understanding for how grief works and how we as care givers should talk about it.
Should you ever have the chance to hear Carol Wogrin speak, take the opportunity. She knows the theory and describes it well. At the same time, she has more than 30 years of real clinical experience. She knows how to put theory into practice and has a mulititude of real life stories to share.
The National Center for Death Education operates out of Mount Ida College in Newton, MA. They run a series of courses (including online learning) and seminars on grief, recovery, thanatology and other related topic areas. You can find further information by following the link.
Mount Ida College: Center for Death Education
UPDATE: Here's the bibliography from Carol's presentation in case you would like to do some of your own further research and reading.
Could not agree more that grief will not "resolve" itself. Holidays are tough, period. I don't know if my heavy heart will lighten up it's load when it comes to my daughter not having her father around during the Christmas season.
Posted by: Deidre Blair | November 27, 2007 at 06:05 PM