2 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
insight, with or without professional help, though we believe that most people
process losses more easily when they talk with someone. Although compli-
cated grief reactions exist, most grief is not pathological. As practitioners, we
have learned that most people are able to cope with even tragic loss when they
have someone who is able to accompany them on their grief journey. We hope
to help you, the reader, feel comfortable helping grievers of all types.
We hope this text allows practitioners to understand how the experience
of grief is influenced by biological responses to stress, psychological responses
to loss in the face of previous attachments, and by social norms and supportive
others. We further hope that this understanding allows practitioners to concep-
tualize their work in ways that allow the mourner to make meaning of the loss
and process it in each griever’s unique way. We envision a practitioner who
may seem passive in not “pushing” one grief model, but who actively helps the
mourner explore her or his new identity in the face of the loss. Good grief work
allows the mourner to learn more about themselves and their “fit” in the world
and to grow as a result of the work the practitioner and griever do together.Text Structure
This text is arranged so that each level of development from infancy through
aging will be addressed in four ways. Each chapter opens with a vignette
about an individual who is experiencing losses characteristic of a specific age
group. The objectives of the chapter follow each vignette. (For this chapter that
has no vignette, they will be found between this section and the main content
of the chapter.) This is followed by a review of normal developmental issues
for that age, particularly the abilities and challenges that are specific to it. The
next section describes how an individual of that age tends to cope with a death
loss. The third section addresses how an individual of that age may experience
her or his own life-threatening illness and how significant others tend to react
to and mourn the death of someone in that age range. The fourth section of
each chapter identifies the typical losses someone of that age is likely to expe-
rience and addresses protective and risky ways of coping with those losses.
Each chapter ends with short readings by experts who share a broader range
of losses, while also providing intervention suggestions from practice wisdom
and empirically supported research perspectives.
Typical losses are those that are relatively common to a specific age group,
but which often are met with little support precisely because they are “normal.”
Pet loss, for example, is likely to occur during the school years, just as the loss of
a romantic relationship is common in emerging adulthood. These are examples
of typical loss. Off-time losses occur during a stage of life where they are not
expected. Although parents often die when children have reached middle age,
it is considered an off-time loss when a parent dies during a child’s adolescence
or emerging adulthood. Off-time losses are more challenging because few peers
are available to provide role models for grieving, peers may distance themselves
due to unfamiliarity and discomfort, and formal support resources may not be
appropriately responsive because the loss is off-time.
Other typical losses are due to development and we refer to these
as maturational losses: for example, when a toddler loses unconditional