Much research relating to children and death has focused on the age-graded developmental model originally proposed by Nagy in the late 1940s. Children are alleged to pass from an infantile to a mature view, seeing death first as separation, then as the result of intervention by a supernatural being, and finally as an irreversible biological process. Accepted theory for thirty years, scholars have since noted difficulty in duplicating Nagy's findings and have come to question the universal application of the developmental model. Bluebond-Langner proposes an alternative model in which all views of death are present in all stages of development. She maintains that the particular orientation a child displays is a result of personal and social experiences.

This study was designed to discover parents' experience following a stillbirth or early infant death. The conceptualization of the research problem was based on Kleinman's (1978) cultural system model which directed the researcher to elicit directly from clients their explanatory models, or their way of viewing the experience. The specific research questions were (1) How do couples perceive and interpret their experience following stillbirth or early infant death? and (2) How do couples view the social support they have received at the time of their infant's death? Six couples, who were recruited primarily from bereavement support groups, participated in the study. Each couple had experienced a stillbirth or early infant death between four months and four years prior to the study. Data were collected from the subjects with the use of unstructured interviews, allowing the experiences to unfold as they were perceived by the participants. Four main themes that evolved from the data were (1) anticipation of parenthood and the shattering of hopes with the death or knowledge of impending death of the infant; (2) a multidimensional personal grief experience; (3) an interpersonal grief exerience influenced by the social support of health care professionals, of friends and family and of the spouse; and (4) reflection and search for meaning in the experience. The discovery of couples' perceptions of their bereavement experience and their view of the support received will assist in enhancing the ability to provide more effective nursing care to bereaved families. Implications for nursing practice, research and education are delineated. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a time-limited support group for children who had recently experienced the death of a close family member. Research hypotheses were that children who participated in a support group would demonstrate significant decreases in adjustment problems related to the loss and that the specific reactions of death anxiety and guilt would be reduced. The study used a modified pretest-post-test control group design. The second experimental group (N = 11) acted as a control for the first group (N = 10), the experimental-treatment group. The treatment consisted of five sessions, each lasting an hour and a half. The instruments used were the Louisville Behavior Check List (LBCL), the Death Anxiety Scale (DAS), the Junior Manifest Anxiety Scale (JMAS), and the Guilt Scale (GS). An Analysis of Variance for repeated measures with post hoc testing was used. Results indicated that children who participated in a bereavement support group did not demonstrate significantly fewer adjustment problems, nor did they show significantly lowered anxiety and guilt. The results indicated that after a six week period participants in the support group did not increase in adjustment problems, anxiety and guilt. An evaluation questionnaire found that the majority of the participants responded positively to the group experience and wanted the group to continue. Limitations of the study were noted and recommendations for further investigation were made.

No description available.

No description available.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1980.

Partial dissertation in compliance with the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Fine Art, Durban University of Technology, 2004. / This dissertation investigates how death as a subject matter in the work of contemporary artists living in European, American, and South African societies, relates to attitudes towards death in those societies. It examines how attitudes towards death have changed over the centuries, and how death is perceived in these societies today. It examines how the treatment of death in art today. differs from other periods because of these attitudes. Chapter One, Section One examines three major shifts in attitudes towards death In Western history, as outlined by Philippe Aries, a leading writer in the field. Chapter One, Section Two looks at death as a subject matter in Western art history, from ancient Greece to the mid-twentieth century. Categories discussed include funerary art, religious art, art and medicine, death personified, historical and analytical, personal, political art, and death and consumerism. Chapter Two, Section One examines attitudes towards death in contemporary Westernized societies, focusing on the medicalization of death, funeral rituals and disposal practices, and attitudes towards death in South Africa, specifically within the cultural framework of white, English-speaking South Africans. Chapter Two, Section Two examines death as a subject matter in the work of selected contemporary artists in America, Europe, and South Africa, and how it relates to attitudes towards death in those societies. Artists examined are Damien Hirst, Christian Boltanski, Joel-Peter Witkin, Andres Serrano, Donna Sharrett, Gerhard Richter, and Jo Ractliffe. The paper concludes by outlining the main arguments of the research and conclusions reached. / M

The anxiety provoked by acknowledgement of the imminent end of existence or death is probably the one which agitates a human being most deeply. The attempt of this paper is not to give an answer as to how to reach immortality, but to explore the author's assumption that for acknowledgement of the mystery of death it is necessary first to discover a being's authentic identity. That is to discover her/his real essence which is hidden under the 'artificial' identity, where this identity is considered the being's ego, an identity formed upon the relative truth of life. The truths of life are relative because they are established by the people, thus they are based upon the changeable and contradictory nature of human beings. The focus of the paper is on researching the establishment of a being's identity, which is formed through she/he having two contradictory relationships with other human beings. The first one is negation and the other one is of acknowledgement of the identity of the other. The examination deals with art works of several contemporary artists, where most of them have experienced war. The philosophical framework of this examination uses the texts of French philosopher Emmanual Levinas, amongst others / Master of Arts (Hons) (Visual Arts)

Thesis (Th. M.)--Master's Seminary, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-107).