To date, there have been no studies utilizing a narrative bereavement model for students impacted by suicide, in a group counseling setting. The present project intends to fill a gap in the literature. We sought to answer the research question, “Do narrative lines of inquiry, specifically re-membering conversations, help to ameliorate the pain of a loved one’s death by suicide?” We hypothesized that re-membering conversations would help to reduce pain, based on the premise that re-membering conversations reconnect the bereaved to the life of their deceased loved one, using a narrative which allows the life, values, thoughts, and wishes of the deceased to be brought forward and reincorporated into the life and future of the bereaved. The present research project consisted of a five-week bereavement group for college students impacted by the suicide of a friend or loved one. The group was structured like a case study in that we conducted a counseling group while collecting research data. Therefore, it was both research-oriented and therapeutic in nature. A sample of convenience was used to recruit and screen previously bereaved college students from a large state university in southern California. The group members self-selected and identified as having been affected by the suicide of a loved one. Each session lasted approximately 120 minutes. Research data consisted of open-ended questions, which were previously prepared by the researchers. This data was collected through audio recorders, transcribed and organized according to related themes. Benefits of the project include: decreased emotional pain due to the suicide, group camaraderie, reconnection with a deceased loved one, and hopefulness for future. The overall findings seem to suggest the following: The deceased always play a role in how we come to understand our own identity. Bringing other people’s voices into the room, whether living or dead, lightens the burden of grief. Having never met the person does not prohibit the living from having a relationship with the dead. Removing places for the deceased loved one to live on only increases pain. The present project seems to support the hypothesis that re-membering conversations help to ameliorate the pain associated with the death of a loved one by suicide. Future research may include quantitative data collection, random samples, larger sample size and varying demographics. Other studies could involve using control groups and then comparing those results with the counseled group. The anecdotal evidence found in the present research project seems to support the further study of the use of re-membering conversations with those bereaved by suicide.

Expectedly and unexpectedly, people pass away. Millions of individuals die in the United States every year. Loss is a natural part of life and some will need grief and loss support. Social workers are in a position to support individuals with grief and loss and end-of-life issues. However, are students ready to provide these services? This study surveyed undergraduate and graduate social work students’ perceived competence in providing grief and loss services. The sample consisted of students in the School of Social Work at California State University, San Bernardino. The study found that respondents in both programs did not feel competent in providing grief and loss services due to the lack of education in the classroom. Additionally, respondents reported not attending professional development hours outside of school.

The purpose of the study is to provide an understanding of the emotional and cultural needs Latinos experience when grieving the loss of a loved one. Current research shows that the Latino community is less likely to seek mental health treatment including end of life and bereavement services. This study uses a qualitative approach examining participant’s experiences during the bereaved phase focusing on emotional needs. The study reveals that Latinos experience emotional distress during bereavement and grief. It also identifies a scarcity of programs designed to meet the needs of the bereaved of Latino communities in the Inland Empire where this study takes place. The study explores different barriers that prevent Latinos from accessing and utilizing bereavement services among Latino communities, social work professionals, and organizations focusing on emotional and mental health. The study reveals that Latinos have a need for culturally sensitive programs to help them process feelings of grief and loss; language, values, and traditions are identified as main cultural characteristics including family and religion. The study identifies support groups, counseling, home visits, and phone calls as the top bereavement services needed in Latino communities as well as professionals who can understand their cultural needs.

Approximately 60% of college seniors lost at least one family member or friend since beginning college (Cox, Dean, & Kowalski, 2015). Research reveals that bereaved students are more likely than their nonbereaved peers to struggle with academic problems and attrition (Cousins, Servaty-Seib & Lockman, 2017), highlighting the importance of identifying protective factors for this group of individuals. Researchers have identified restoration-oriented coping as a helpful coping mechanism in other samples (Caserta & Lund, 2007; Caserta, Lund, Utza, & de Vries, 2009). Despite qualitative evidence suggesting bereaved undergraduates often employ restoration-oriented coping, no research has formally assessed the effects of restoration-oriented coping in a bereaved undergraduate sample. This study assessed the effects of restoration-oriented coping on students’ (N=420; 68.8% female; 46.7% white) psychological well-being in a longitudinal design. Data were part of a larger study (“Spit 4 Science”) assessing the development of substance use and emotional health outcomes in college students. Students were assessed annually; those who reported a loss, had pre-, and post-loss data were included in analysis. Hierarchical multiple linear regressions were conducted and showed restoration-oriented coping was predictive of better psychological well-being and that this relationship was strengthened by social support quality. Extraversion was also predictive of better psychological well-being, while openness and neuroticism were related to poorer psychological well-being. Moreover, neuroticism mediated the relationship between distress at indication of loss and post-loss follow-up. Further research of restoration-oriented coping efforts among bereaved undergraduates is warranted. Additional resources and support may help to keep students engaged following a loss.

Research on expressive art interventions for bereavement has burgeoned in recent years. Studies have supported their effectiveness in facilitating participants’ adjustment to loss (e.g., Rosner, Kruse, & Hagl, 2010; Uttley, 2015) and have revealed the frequency with which they are clinically implemented (Thompson & Neimeyer, 2014). Clinicians and recipients of expressive art interventions advocate for their helpfulness in grief processing (e.g., Gamino, 2015). Publications have highlighted particular visual art modules that facilitate adaptive adjustment to loss by providing avenues for self-expression, meaning making and continuing bonds with the deceased (Neimeyer, 2016), but few studies have quantitatively investigated whether they improve bereavement outcomes. Efficacy of treatment modalities are especially warranted for bereaved subgroups at elevated risk for developing symptoms of complicated grief, such as socioeconomically vulnerable older adults, as they are among those most likely to benefit from intervention but face the most barriers to accessible treatment (Ghesquiere, 2013; Newson et al., 2011). This longitudinal study investigated the feasibility and efficacy of a 4-week grief support group with visual art modalities for bereaved older adults residing in government subsidized independent living facilitates in the community. Measured outcomes included meaning made from the loss, continued bonds with the deceased, perceived social support, personal growth, and negative bereavement experiences such as symptoms of complicated grief and depression. Findings from this study support the feasibility and acceptability of implementing an art-based grief support group for socioeconomically vulnerable older adults. Significant improvement was found in meaning made from the loss, personal growth, and negative grief symptoms. Depressive symptoms significantly decreased immediately following completion of the group, but these levels returned closer to baseline levels at one-month follow up. Participants who screened positively for complicated grief at baseline reported greater improvement in their negative grief symptoms and depression, consistent with the extant literature that the bereft in highest distress receive the most benefit from grief intervention. As complicated grief is more prevalent in the older adult population than other age groups, further investigation on the efficacy and effectiveness of targeted bereavement support is warranted.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to fill an existing gap in research on bereavement and graduate students. The study explored how bereavement and grief affect a person physically, mentally, and cognitively. Prior studies have addressed bereavement in undergraduate college students, but little research has focused on online graduate students and bereavement. This study fills that gap in the literature allowing university personnel and the public access to an understanding as to how online graduate students' bereavement affects their academic performance and how they perceive their university supports them during their time of bereavement. This exploration used a case study design and Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory as its theoretical foundation. Open-ended interview data were collected from 10 formerly bereaved graduate students in face to face structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and categorized using a 7-step process to organize all relevant statements. The results revealed that bereaving graduate students felt isolated, experienced difficulty focusing, and required extensions for completing their coursework. Participants concluded it was important for bereaving students to ask for help during bereavement. This study provides an understanding of the experience of being a bereaved online graduate student, and further provides information to assist university personnel in how to serve bereaved graduate students. This information may lead to enhanced programs or services meeting the needs of graduate students, including promotion of staff training related to the unique needs of bereaved graduate students.

Facing the death of a loved one is often a traumatic experience; when the deceased is one's own child, the loss may be the most stressful event of one's life. There has been very little research into the phenomenon of being a bereaved parent. This study is a phenomenological investigation into the lived experience of being a bereaved parent and whether resilience or recovery plays a role in how parents move through and eventually past such a loss to continue with their own lives. Previous research has indicated that adjustment to traumatic experiences can take multiple pathways or trajectories, depending on a variety of factors within the individual coping with the stressful event. This study involved an investigation into these pathways through the lived experiences of those who suffered the loss of a child, in an effort to determine whether resilience or recovery influenced a parent's ability to survive the death. Ten bereaved parents were interviewed to learn whether resilience or recovery affected their ability to cope and function in a healthy way despite the loss. These interviews were analyzed to determine whether there were common themes among unrelated bereaved parents, and whether they resonated with the concept of resilience or that of recovery. The results of this study indicated resilience to be a healthier method of adjustment for bereaved parents, with recovery being an almost offensive concept for those who participated. These results allow for a greater understanding of the lived experience of being a bereaved parent, as well as instruct those in helping professions in how best to serve bereaved parents who need to adapt to new lives that now proceed without the beloved child.

In studies, grief due to the loss of a child is recognized as a complex process, one whose trajectory is influenced by a variety of factors. One factor, the age of the child at the time of death, may be an important influence in the trajectory of grief. The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of loss for 15 bereaved mothers and fathers whose children suddenly died between the ages of 2 and 12 years. This age range was selected to explore bereavement in parents of young and preteen children because they may feel a greater sense of daily care and responsibility for the safety of their children in comparison to bereaved mothers and fathers of older children or adults. The psychosocial transition theory was used to develop the research questions, which framed the exploration of the experiences and adaptive responses of the parent participants. There were 15 recorded semistructured interviews from which the data were collected. The transcribed data were validated with member checking. Data analysis was completed using open and hierarchical coding to identify meanings and recurrent themes in the participant narratives. Recurrent themes included that grieving was emotional and physical for these parents, and that grief made it difficult for them to do everyday tasks or care for surviving children. Mothers and fathers identified viewing their world as less safe and experienced a reevaluation or complete abandonment of their spiritual beliefs. Implications for positive social change include increasing social awareness in the general public about grief due to child death and challenging unrealistic expectations of grief trajectory. Furthermore, the findings of this study may be used by mental health professionals to create interventions specific to this type of loss.

Grief is a natural condition resulting from human loss. It is also a variable process through which aggrieved persons pass and by which a variety of personal and contextual factors can impact the both the breadth and depth. Concordantly, grief resulting from the loss of a spouse is one of the most difficult psychological and social issues through which someone can pass. Among the variety of factors associated with conjugal grief, loss that occurs outside the normative pattern of life events has received little attention. This study of 232 young widows between the ages of 18 and 55 was conducted to ascertain the factors that were associated with off-time conjugal grief. To do this, the present study utilized data from an online survey that was disseminated largely via social network sites and grief support groups across the United States. Framed in Erikson’s lifespan theory of psychosocial development and utilizing the dual process model of coping with bereavement, this study included an assessment of the impact of quality of life, coping orientation, adulthood psychosocial balance, and sociodemographic factors on grief in young widowhood. Using correlational and regression analyses, many of these variables were individually associated with young widows’ levels of grief. Through additional multiple regression analyses conducted in pursuit of a more parsimonious model, when accounting for the other variables several predictors were no longer found to provide unique contribution to participant grief. In the final model, when simultaneously adjusting for all study variables retained from earlier analyses, higher levels of loss-oriented coping were found to be associated with higher levels of grief. Additionally, higher levels of intimacy balance and participants’ longer length of relationship with their deceased spouse were both associated with lower levels of grief. These findings highlight similarities found in past research regarding conjugal loss, including loss at younger ages, grief work, and the buffering effect of intimacy balance on levels of grief. Contrary to past research on grief, the relative importance of factors such as identity balance, religiosity, and social support were limited in their net influence on grief in young widowhood. These findings can inform future research and intervention regarding the context and impact of conjugal loss that occurs at younger ages.

The current dissertation sought to examine stress in three different, but overlapping, ways. The first study examined how self-reported negative life events, in the aggregate and individually, are associated with cognitive performance. The results suggested that there was no significant relationship between the aggregate measures of self-reported negative life events and cognitive performance. On the other hand, several individual negative life events were associated with cognitive functioning. The findings support previous research indicating that using estimates of individual stressors rather than aggregate measures of stressors increases the predictive validity of stress measurement. The second study assessed the cross-sectional and longitudinal effects of bereavement on cognitive functioning. The cross-sectional results revealed that bereavement status alone was not associated with cognitive performance. On the other hand, there were several significant interactions between bereavement status and the background characteristics. The longitudinal results revealed that the bereaved individuals declined on the delayed naming recall task and there was a significant interaction between gender and bereavement on the delayed story recall task. Our results support the finding that bereavement is associated with poorer cognitive performance within certain subgroups (i.e., males and the young-old participants). The third and final study examined the effects of allostatic load (AL) on cognitive performance in bereaved and non-bereaved individuals over a twelve-month period post-bereavement. The cross-sectional findings suggested that the overall AL measure, the syndrome X (a collection of cardiovascular risk factors) and non-syndrome X measures (stress hormones), and the individual AL markers were associated with cognitive performance. Longitudinally, we were unable to find an association between the overall AL measure and cognitive performance. Taken together, the current findings suggest that there is an association between the multiple stress factors under investigation and cognitive performance. The cross-sectional results revealed that the individual negative life events (i.e., having less money to live on), bereavement, and the AL markers were associated with poorer cognitive performance. Furthermore, the results suggest that utilizing the individual life events and AL markers may be more informative when assessing cognitive functioning in the current samples compared to using the sum scores.