Bereavement and Heightened Existential Awareness

Abstract

"Ask not for whom the bells toll; they toll for thee." John Donne's admonition, though written 350 years ago, endures with astonishing freshness; it speaks to something self-evident, to a truth that is well known to many who have experienced bereavement--that the death of a significant other has the potential to hurl the survivor into a confrontation with his/her own death. A confrontation with death--should we seek it? There is evidence in the clinical literature that in terminally ill patients such a confrontation may lead to pronounced positive psychological changes. Research (Yalom 1980) has documented that terminally ill patients may undergo a series of positive personal changes; they communicate more openly with family and close friends, they experience fewer fears, they rearrange their life priorities, they are less preoccupied with the trivialities of life, they live life more immediately rather than postpone experience and pleasure into the future. Does spousal bereavement in our culture confront individuals with their own personal death? Does it cause some widow/widowers to regard their existence in a different manner? If so, might it be possible that those bereaved individuals who examine their life deeply may have a different course of bereavement than those who do not look within? Might it even be possible that bereavement, for some individuals, results in psychological shifts analogous to the positive changes reported by terminally ill patients? These are the basic questions of our research inquiry. We designed a project which would allow us to determine, in a nonclinical sample of bereaved spouses, differences in the degree of existential awareness and the consequences of such awareness on the course of bereavement. We also attempted to determine which subjects were more likely to develop heightened existential awareness. The participants studied were part of an intervention project on bereavement in which we studied a sample of widows and widowers in the first few months of bereavement and then offered them an opportunity to participate in an eight-meeting support group. Reports of the clinical issues emerging in our short-term bereavement groups and of the efficacy of these groups were published elsewhere (Yalom and Vinogradov 1988; Lieberman and Yalom 1991).

Can “sense of presence” experiences in bereavement be conceptualised as spiritual phenomena?

“…Positive changes such as increased strength, empathy and connectedness with others, increased compassion (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2001), "enhanced personal resources" (Schaefer & Moos, 2001), enhanced "existential awareness" (Yalom, Lieberman, & Morton, 1991) and "spiritual change" (Balk, 1999) have been reported. In fact, it has been observed that bereavement research is moving towards a growth-oriented paradigm (Rothaupt & Belker, 2007).…”

Making sense of resilience: A review from the field of paediatric psycho-oncology and a proposal of a model for its study. [Explicando la resiliencia: una revisión desde la psico-oncología pediátrica y una propuesta de modelo para su estudio]

“…This leads to a growing body of research, which reveals that many trauma survivors also experience positive psychological changes after this experience. Different terms have been used to describe this phenomenon: stress-related growth (Park, Cohen & Murch, 1996;Park & Hegelson, 2006), flourishing or thriving (Ryff & Singer, 1998;Seligman, 2003), benefit finding (Affleck & Tennen, 1996;Harrington, Gurk & Llewellyn, 2008), post-traumatic growth (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2006;Hefferon, Grealy & Mutrie, 2009) or positive psychological changes (Yalom & Lieberman, 1991), among others. One of the terms that has been largely accepted is post-traumatic growth (hereinafter, PTG), since it seems to adequately capture the idea that there is a "growth", or a development beyond the level of functioning prior to the event.…”

Posttraumatic Growth in Treatment-seeking Female Assault Victims

“…Despite this considerable body of research, the concept of posttraumatic growth, or the possibility that an individual can "grow" psychologically from an adverse life event, has gained increased attention in the past few years [5]. Although the term used to describe posttraumatic growth has varied across studies (e.g., "perceived benefits," "positive psychological changes," "stress-related growth") [6][7][8][9], the conceptual aim of measuring growth outcomes typically has been to assess whether individuals can in some way move beyond a premorbid level of functioning following a traumatic event [10]. Thus, within the posttraumatic growth framework, an adverse experience is viewed as a potential catalyst for positive psychological and interpersonal change.…”