1 Introduction 15prescriptive in that it describes a process the bereaved must experience if they
are to proceed toward healing. Note that the titles of the phases and subphases
are Rando’s (1993), followed by our description of their meaning.
AVOIDANCE PHASE
- Recognize the loss—The bereaved must acknowledge and understand
the reality of the death.
CONFRONTATION PHASE
- React to the separation—The bereaved must experience the pain of the
loss, give it expression and mourn secondary losses. - Recollect and re-experience the deceased and the relationship—The
bereaved is to review and remember the relationship realistically and
also review and re-experience the emotions that arise as they remember
the relationship. - Relinquish the old attachments to the deceased and the old assump-
tive world—The bereaved is to let go of previous bonds and beliefs and
develop a “new normal” with new relationships and attachments.
ACCOmmODATION PHASE
- Readjust to move adaptively into the new world without forgetting the
old—The bereaved is to revise his or her assumptive world; develop a
new relationship with deceased; adopt new ways of being in the world
and form an identity not predicated on the presence of the deceased. - Reinvest—This is a time to invest in new relationships and roles and indi-
cates a resolution to active grieving.
Although Rando (1993) provides a model with more room for individ-
ualized tailoring of the treatment process, the model assumes that compli-
cated grief is common and requires treatment when grief is deemed to be
too extended, too brief (or absent), or when it does not follow the trajectory
outlined in these various stage and process models. Despite Rando’s obvious
compassion and concern for bereaved people, her model is subject to some
of the same criticisms noted above. These models are of the “modern” era:
all progress is forward and the map is the same for all. The model is normal
and deviation is considered abnormal. Yet pathologizing variation in a highly
variable process like grief seems rather obtuse from the “postmodern” per-
spective that is skeptical of essences and “natural uniformities” in the social
world.
THE GRIEF WORk HYPOTHESIS Task and stage-based theories imply a specific
way to work on or “evolve in” one’s grief. The primary activity is emotional
processing and the good griever actively works on his or her loss. This is
known as the Grief work hypothesis—and it was discredited in the early
1990s (Stroebe & Stroebe, 1991) although still cited in the late first decade of
the 21st century (Costa et al., 2007). The grief work hypothesis assumes that
emotional ventilation (crying, mourning, anger) needed to be expressed before
one could begin to heal from a significant loss. The implication was that if this