The author was stunned by the way in which justice in Mvenyane village in the district of Matatiele system handled a case of rape which led to murder. The rapist and the murder was caught by community members and brought the police officers but no rape and murder charges were laid against the suspect for that particular case. Family members and relative of deceased including the community members were traumatised by the action surrounding the rape and murder case .The author is trying to find possible pastoral care way when people are going through the turmoil as a result of murder which occurs after rape. The author saw it necessary to journey with the bereaved family and relative in a pastoral care way. The methods used in a study Charles Gerkins method of Shepherding and Nick Pollards method of positive construction. Although some fingers were pointing on the police officers on the way they handled the case, the author find it later that police officers are working under certain restriction under the department of justice. Family members and relatives should make that their case of rape and murder are reported directly to the police officers to be sure that these case are investigated .There should be traumatic and pastoral counsellors who should work to heal the bereaved families and affected community members after murder case in the communities. / Dissertation (MA Theol)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / Practical Theology / unrestricted

A deep interest in how relationships, specifically romantic partnerships, cope with and survive tragedies, guides this research. My research question was: What are the narratives of intact bereaved couples whose children have died after receiving palliative care for a life-limiting illness? Five couples were interviewed who had lost their children ranging in age from 1-14 years of age. This loss occurred between 2 to 9 years previous to this study. The purpose of this narrative research study was to better understand the ways in which intact marital partners/couples coped together with the stress and grief involved in having a child with a life-limiting condition and then having that child die after receiving palliative care. A secondary aim was to bring forth their voices through their narratives as a means to address the stigmatization and isolation often experienced by those who are bereaved, especially those who have lost a child. This project informs professionals who are working with couples undergoing the struggle of a child's critical illness or who are working with bereaved couples. Each couple's narrative account was written in story format. In addition to the rich information gained from reading the holistic stories, 5 themes emerged through a categorical content analysis which were: 1) the last thing you worry about are issues about us, 2) accommodating one another's coping, 3) recognizing sources of support and limitations, 4) two souls against the world, and 5) we have a common bond : lessons and legacy of the child. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

The rationale for this study arose from the researcher’s own practice as a children’s hospice counsellor, being given the challenge of providing emotional support to all those wishing to access a counselling service within a children’s hospice. How could one counsellor fulfil such a responsibility? What was meant by the term “support?” What part did the hospice’s multi-disciplinary team play within the provision of this support? Such questions, the researcher felt, needed to be put to a wider audience and the aim of this study was to examine children’s hospice counsellors’ practice of assessing needs and implementing pre and post bereavement support to children/young people and their families who access a U.K. children’s hospice service. A phenomenological approach was adopted and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with seven children’s hospice counsellors were transcribed verbatim. The researcher identified salient information and categorised forming themes using thematic analysis. Quotes were selected that captured the semantics of these themes.The main findings were that pre-bereavement support activities were being provided by members of the hospices’ multi-disciplinary teams. The assessment of needs during the this stage was found to be carried out by members of the nursing staff encompassing medical as well as psycho-social needs. It was also discovered that children’s hospice counsellors were more actively engaged in post-bereavement support and informally assessing bereavement needs. In addition, bereavement needs assessment was being carried out by a variety of professionals who had had some involvement with the family during the pre-bereavement stage.Implications of the findings suggested that counsellors could be more actively involved in pre-bereavement assessment of families’ needs. It was also indicated from the results that in-depth training on anticipatory grief and the grieving process, as well as supervision of other professionals supporting family members, could be delivered by children’s hospice counsellors.It was recommended that the subject of assessment of both pre and post bereavement needs of the diverse client groups accessing support services be opened up for wider debate and dialogue within the arena of children’s hospice services and paediatric palliative care.

[no abstract included] / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

Suicide is an irreversible and tragic act that often leaves people confused and stigmatised. Immediately after a completed suicide, people’s thoughts usually turn to the suicide victim. Yet, the real victims of this tragedy are those individuals who are left behind to cope with the emotional trauma to loose a significant other. They often struggle with unanswerable questions, self-blaming and an inability to move on with their lives. This thesis aims to address two pertinent issues. The first is that little is known regarding the qualitative aspects of adolescent suicide survivors’ emotional experiences, meaning-making and coping behaviour. The second is that formal and informal caregivers have a need for psychoeducational resource material to effectively support adolescent suicide survivors during postvention. A psychological-phenomenological approach has been chosen as the fundamental ideological stance within the psycho-educational programme development structure of the study. Furthermore, the methodological assumptions of the phenomenological interview were enriched with some narrative principles and an arts-based component. The situation analysis’ research participants comprised of female late adolescents (17-22 years old) whom were recruited by means of criterion sampling. The most important specific inclusion criterion was that they had direct experience of being a suicide survivor; the suicide victim could be any significant person with whom the participant had had a meaningful relationship, such as a close friend, relative or direct family member. Data collection during the situation analysis primarily consisted of face-to-face phenomenological interviews. A pre-interview task to create a personalised collage was given to the research participants. These self-created collages served as narrative-facilitators during the interviews. Some of the participants provided additional documentary material in the form of personal diaries, letters and poems. ABSTRACT vi The data analysis basically followed Giorgi’s phenomenological method, especially due to its strong psychological sensitivity. Some supplementary analysis principles from the phenomenological approaches of Kruger and Wertz were integrated into Giorgi’s method to strengthen and support its psychological and educational inclinations. The principles of Guba’s model were employed in the verification of the research process. The themes that emerged from the phenomenological analysis were categorised into peri-suicide experiences (those experiences in the days around the suicide events that ended with the funeral) and post-suicide experiences (those experiences in the weeks, months and years following the direct suicide events). Each of these two parts consists of three experience clusters. The experience clusters for the peri-suicide experiences are the following: “Awareness of victim’s suicide-associated behaviour directly prior to the suicide”; “Immediate reactions on becoming aware of the suicide” and “Reactions in the days following the suicide”. The experience clusters for the post-suicide experiences are the following: “Falling apart”; “Being shattered” and “Putting the pieces back together”. The research participants’ experiences of the collage-making process per se, as well as the actual process of collage-making that they engaged in are also addressed. A web-based psycho-educational programme was developed from the rich research results obtained during the situation analysis. This programme can be used as a postvention resource instrument by adolescent survivors and caregivers of suicide survivors alike. / Prof. C.P.H. Myburgh

Persistent intense yearning for the deceased is a core clinical feature of complicated grief (CG) that distinguishes it from other mental disorders that develop following loss. The Yearning in Situations of Loss Scale (YSL) is a recently developed assessment of yearning. To assess the psychometric properties of the YSL in those with CG, we administered the YSL, Inventory of Complicated Grief, and Quick Inventory of Depression Symptomatology to 303 treatment-seeking bereaved adults with CG. Our results suggest the YSL is a reliable assessment with acceptable convergent and discriminant validity as a measure of yearning in those with CG.

No description available.

Bakgrund: Att förlora en familjemedlem leder till sorg. Enligt litteraturen räknas sorgen som en akut stress- eller krisreaktion vilken ses som en normal process, men den har förmåga att utvecklas patogent. Egentlig depression och ökad suicidrisk är konsekvenser av felaktigt bemötande och ofullständig sorgebearbetning. För att undvika dessa konsekvenser behöver de sörjande individerna upptäckas och bemötas på ett lämpligt sätt. Syfte: Beskriva sorgereaktioner hos individer efter en familjemedlems bortgång med fokus på behovet av stöd från sjuksköterskan. Metod: En litteraturstudie genomfördes för att sammanställa relevant och aktuell forskning. Fem kvalitativa forskningsartiklar, två tvärsnittsstudier samt en artikel med mixad metod inkluderades i resultatet och analyserades via integrerad analys. Resultat: Analysen resulterade i tre kategorier: Sjuksköterskor och sorgeservice, Att förstå sorgens påverkan samt Bemötande av sorg. Det framkommer även att sjuksköterskor behöver öka sin förståelse för sorgens uttryck och kunskap om bemötandet av sörjande individer. Sorgeservice beskrevs som ensamt, osynligt arbete och förståelse från organisationen saknades. Slutsats: Flertalet sjuksköterskor upplever rädsla och osäkerhet vid första mötet med sörjande individer. Sjukvården brister i bemötandet och gemensamma riktlinjer gällande bemötande samt stöd vid sorg saknas. Författarna ser ett behov av tillägg i universitetens sjuksköterskeutbildning gällande en fördjupande kurs i bemötande av sörjande individer.

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Clinical Psychology) in the Department of Psychology University of Zululand, 2002. / There has been a lot of concern as to whether children grieve or not when death strikes in their immediate environment If the experience of bereavement can be reliably measured in children, insight into their painful experiences will be gained and appropriate treatment strategies will be established. This study aims to explore whether projective drawings can provide a reliable method of exploring the world of a black bereaved child. The Human Figure Drawing (HFD), Self Portrait, Kinetic Family Drawing (KFD) and Own Choice/spontaneous Drawing was adniinistered on a group of 20 bereaved children and a control group of 20 non bereaved children. In general, more Emotional Indicators were identified on HFDs and Self Portraits of the Bereaved Group. Results showed statistically significant differences between the two groups in four indicators on HFDs (big figure; teeth; monster/grotesque; hands cut off) and in two indicators on Self Portrait (slanting figure and hands cut off) KFDs and Own Choice Drawings could not statistically differentiate the two groups but were found to be of assistance in gaining insight into the family dynamics and for gaining respite from grief work respectively, in the bereaved group. Composite analysis of the four projective drawings provided more insight into the world of the bereaved child.

The purpose of the study is to fill the gap in the literature regarding sibling bereavement. This study explored how sibling bereavement from unnatural causes of death affects surviving siblings. Bereavement affects millions of Americans every year. Most grieve naturally, but some experience complicated grief or depression. Many studies address parental and spousal bereavement, but few focus on sibling bereavement. This study fills that gap in the literature so that mental health care professionals and the general public understand what bereaved siblings experience after the death of a sibling. The study was a phenomenological study using social constructivism as a theoretical lens to explore how sibling bereavement affects surviving siblings. Open-ended interviews were collected from 10 bereaved siblings. Those interviews were then transcribed and categorized using a 7 step process to review and organize all relevant statements. Results of this study shows that sibling bereavement can be a life changing event for surviving siblings affecting all aspects of life and leaving unanswered questions and feelings of guilt. Participants also state they felt overlooked after the death leading to delayed grief. Participants concluded that sibling grief is subjective, so any treatment plan should be catered to the individual based on their relationship to the deceased sibling and the role the sibling played. This study can bring about positive social change by helping mental health care workers understand sibling bereavement better so that they may help those suffering from complicated grief following the loss of a sibling.