week 15 course reflexion Community Nurse

Complicated Grief

Most of the time, people go through grief after they have lost someone special. Grief is a natural way that people have been responding after one dies. People do not grief in the same way. The common ways of grief include anger, guilt, numbness and sorrow. However, some people find it difficult to overcome grief even as time pass. The situation where a person is unable to overcome sorrow is known as complicated grief. In other words, complicated grief is known as bereavement disorder (Crunk et al. 2017). People with bereavement disorder have a tough time overcoming grief and resuming normal life. The main factors leading to complicated grief include not accepting loss, denying pain, inability to adjust to new normal and resistance to a new relationship among others. A person who is unable to go through the stages of grief for more than a year shows signs of complicated grief.

Signs of complicated grief

Several behaviors could be an indicator of complicated grief in a person. One of the signs is intense sorrow after a loved one has died. For example, one has encountered people who never stop talking in sorrow about a person who died many years ago. Such a person can make people in a given environment not mention the person who died. Secondly, some people may stop focusing on anything else in their environment other than the loved one who died (Robinaugh et al. 2016). A person is very focused on the remembrance of a person who died, limiting the normal activities in life. For example, one can miss a friend's wedding to go visit a loved one’s cemetery. Lastly, some people lack the purpose of life after someone close has died. When people are unable to move on from a person who has died this is an indication of complicated grief.

References

Crunk, A. E., Burke, L. A., & Robinson III, E. M. (2017). Complicated grief: An evolving theoretical landscape. Journal of Counseling & Development, 95(2), 226-233.

Robinaugh, D. J., Millner, A. J., & McNally, R. J. (2016). Identifying highly influential nodes in the complicated grief network. Journal of abnormal psychology, 125(6), 747.