The lifespan developmental framework views aging as a time of continued personal change and development. Death is perhaps the most salient developmental challenge older persons face. The relationship of self-transcendence, spirituality, and hope to personal death perspectives was the focus of this research. A descriptive correlational approach was used to study the relationships between these variables. Interviews were conducted with forty healthy adults aged sixty-five and older. Findings revealed that self-transcendence and spirituality were significantly correlated with positive death perspectives in this sample. Findings also revealed significant relationships between age and death perspectives, gender and self-transcendence, and gender and spirituality. No significant relationships were found between hope and death perspectives and hopelessness and death perspectives.

One of the most powerful and life-changing events that can occur in the life of a family is the death of a child. Researchers who have studied death and bereavement suggest that a child's death has a dramatic impact on parents. However, little is known about the ways in which child loss influences a parent's sense of identity and subsequent parental behavior. The purpose of this study was to explore how the life event of having a child die affects parents in their sense of identity and behavior as a mother or father. It was also to search for common patterns and themes in parental accounts of a child's death that provide a better understanding of this topic. Individual mothers and fathers were interviewed and asked about their experience in losing a child, and how this experience shaped their feelings of identity and parental behavior in relation to both the deceased child and their other children. Nineteen mothers and fathers who had children die as a result of accidental causes or illness were interviewed. Interview transcripts were qualitatively analyzed for content. Findings were broken into four primary categories: (a) parental experience in the context of loss; (b) impact of a child's death on parental identity; (c) parental behavior in relation to the deceased child; and (d) parental behavior in relation to surviving children. The findings provided support to the idea that a child's death has a significant impact on parental identity and a parent's subsequent behavior. The findings demonstrated that how a child dies is a critical factor in how parents experience the loss. The findings related to parental identity show that parents struggle with their sense of competence, mourn the lost parent-child bond, and feel a loss of parental hopes for the future. The findings about parental behavior in relation to the deceased child suggest that connecting with and remembering the child in diverse ways are fundamental aspects of parental behavior after a child's death. The findings also show that a child's death shapes surviving parent-child relationships as parents mediate the loss experience for children, become more protective, and increase their parental efforts in behalf of children. / Graduation date: 2000

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Research has shown that presenting incidental reminders of death, a manipulation referred to as mortality salience, increases unconscious accessibility of death thoughts and, in turn, increases the use of various defense mechanisms to reduce such thoughts. Death-thought accessibility and use of such defense mechanisms vary based on self-reported attachment style. Because self-reports do not verify causality, the current study aimed to establish a causal relationship between attachment and terror management. It was posited that experimentally activating a secure attachment schema after mortality salience should decrease unconscious accessibility of death thoughts, whereas activating an insecure attachment schema should increase accessibility of death thoughts (i.e., there should be a Mortality Salience x Attachment Priming interaction). Lastly, these effects should not be mediated by mood. A 2 Mortality Salience vs. Control) x 3 (Priming: secure. insecure, or neutral) x 2 (Sex) ANOVA on death-thought accessibility did not show the predicted interaction. The discussion section focuses on the obstacles in accurately rneasuring death-thought accessibility and future directions for research. / Department of Psychological Science

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

M.Cur. (Midwifery and Neonatal Nursing) / The purpose of this study is to determine the experiences of the parents after the death of a congenital abnormal baby. Parents who have lost a baby go through a process of grief. This also applies to parents of a baby with congenital abnormalities. Parents whose congenital abnormal baby dies, not only grieve because of the abnormality of their baby, but also because it died Unstructured in-depth interviews were held with six couples within a year after the death of their babies. The experiences of the six couples were afterwards compared. A literature study was undertaken in order to determine what the conclusions of other researchers field were. The result of the literature study was compared with that of the present study. Recommendations are made at the end of this study on the practical applications, education and further research that can be undertaken on this subject.

This study investigated family grief and resilience following a child’s death. Representing 23 families, 35 bereaved parents completed biographical questionnaires, the Family Hardiness Index, and the Family Attachment and Changeability Index 8. Significant positive correlations were found between family hardiness and family adaptation, and between parents’ age and family hardiness. Using grounded theory, interviews allowed for the formulation of categories including grief, continuing bonds, external support, religion, and family hardiness. The study reveals the need for exploring unique experiences of families bereaved by children’s deaths and identifies family hardiness as a potential resilience factor for this population

M.A. / Death and loss accompany us throughout our lives and are experienced in a variety of forms and situations. Numerous researches have been undertaken to gain some perspective on death. and loss, however these attempts have proven to be impersonal, incomplete and of limited use, as death tends to evade direct scrutiny. An attempt is made here to observe death and loss from a stance that respects the human element. The personal experiences of adults who have lost parent/s at a young age are examined. This paper explores the constructions of death and loss, as well as the meanings that are attributed to these experiences. A social constructionist approach is used to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the participants' relationships with death and loss. One of the primary aims of this paper is to investigate the implications that these constructions of death and loss have for the way people live and make sense of their lives. This study focusses on how death requires the individual to reconstruct a sense of identity and relationship with the world. Some of the major conceptualisations of death, loss and mourning are reviewed in conjunction with the input of philosophers, poets and creative writers allowing for a richer, fuller perception of these events. The aim of this paper is not to develop a comprehensive understanding of death and loss, but rather to approach these constructs from a more personal perspective. This paper moves away from modernist thinking and includes the researcher as a participant where personal biases, experiences and understandings are included.