Death, bereavement and college students: A descriptive Analysis

Abstract

The author presents two studies dealing with death and bereavement in the lives of college students. The first study, conducted with 994 undergraduates in an introductory course on human development, involved a survey about death and bereavement in their lives. The second study consisted of interviews with 18 undergraduates bereaved over the death of a family member or a friend. Interview topics included reminiscence, avoidance, emotions, expectations about recovery, and means used to cope. A finding with serious implications is that a significant portion of the students surveyed reported recent experiences with death. Religion emerged as important in the lives of many students, and provided what they considered a useful means of coping with bereavement. The few bereaved students who sought professional help said they had been disappointed with what was offered. On average bereaved students said talking about the death proved helpful, but many persons seemed uncomfortable when the topic was mentioned. Two conceptual frameworks proved useful in understanding the results: a model of coping with life crises and attachment theory. A two-fold intervention focus seems needed: one on educating the campus community about bereavement; one on assisting bereaved students to resolve their grief.

Bereavement and College Students: The Role of Counseling Psychology

“…Such changes could be related to a lack of knowledge about grief or a lack of skill in how best to interact with troubled peers. Research suggests that bereaved students do not perceive their peers as supportive (Balk, 1997;Silverman, 1987). In fact, bereaved students report that their peers are uncomfortable discussing the topic of grief (Balk, 1997) and generally turn away or communicate the need for the bereaved to "get over it" (Silverman, 1987, p. 393).…”

“…However, there is some empirical indication that the theory could apply to their experience. For example, Balk (1997) found that bereaved college students indicated the following practices to be helpful in their process of coping with their death loss: "remembering good things about the deceased, engaging in religious practices, crying, keeping busy, talking about the death, and thinking the person is better off because he/she is dead" (p. 215). It is interesting to note that these spontaneously offered strategies do seem to represent a balance of loss and restoration-oriented coping efforts.…”

“…Although some findings suggest that college students have a fairly accurate sense of what the bereaved experience (Thompson & Range, 1991;Vickio, Cavanaugh, & Attig, 1990), other research indicates that college students either overestimate (Perkins & Tebes, 1984;Thompson & Range, 1992) or underestimate (Thompson & Range, 1992) the difficulties experienced by grieving individuals. Balk (1997) interviewed bereaved college students who reported that the grief recovery process was harder than they had anticipated. They indicated that their friends communicated an expectation that the grief recovery process should involve less sadness, occur more quickly, and in general be easier than was actually the case.…”

“…The designs of studies are limited by a disconnection with theory and the use of crosssectional, unilevel, and correlational approaches. Preliminary research suggests the need for future investigations focused on why and when bereaved students decide to seek mental health services and on the effectiveness of individual and group interventions with grieving students (e.g., Balk, 1997;Balk et al, 1998).…”

“…There also is a need for counseling psychology, as a discipline composed of scientistpractitioners, to turn empirical attention to the experience of bereaved college students as compared with other bereaved populations (e.g., children, adult spouses) because relatively little is known about how college students cope with death losses (Balk, 1997;Tyson-Rawson, 1996). We contend that college students are an understudied population of grievers with unique challenges that have not been fully explored.…”