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• 1. [Article] A Bioecological Model of Grief Recovery : Theory and Test of the Model

  A primary aim of bereavement research is to alleviate suffering and promote well-being at the junction of life and death for the survivor in an attachment relationship. Bereavement research in the last ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: A Bioecological Model of Grief Recovery : Theory and Test of the Model Author: Romo, Daniel L. A primary aim of bereavement research is to alleviate suffering and promote well-being at the junction of life and death for the survivor in an attachment relationship. Bereavement research in the last decade has focused primarily on examining grief recovery within the context of intrapersonal processes. This emphasis has often ignored peer, family, and cultural influences on adjustment to loss. As a result, targeted grief interventions have largely been limited to adaptive and maladaptive factors within the individual. Evidence from recent research suggests the importance of taking into account contextual factors within the social environment that have bidirectional influences on the individual, and function as potential deficits or resources for grief recovery over time. Thus, a comprehensive framework for the simultaneous consideration of person-environment transactions, rather than just a strict emphasis on intrapersonal processes, is essential to advancing the current understanding of grief recovery. To address this gap, this study presents a bioecological model of grief recovery with the addition of a 'loss system' level of influence--capturing characteristics of the deceased, circumstances of the death, and the relationship between the bereaved and the deceased prior to the death--to simultaneously account for the person- and environment-level systems of influence. The implications of this theoretical model are described for two different types of loss: death of spouse in older adults and death of a child. To move this model from theory to real-world application, the viability of the model was tested by empirically contrasting it with an individual-level (intrapersonal) model of grief recovery as applied to spousal bereavement in later life. An archived longitudinal data set (the Changing Lives of Older Couples data) was the basis for growth curve models examining the trajectory of grief several years after death of spouse. The individual-level model focused on the intrapersonal predictors known to influence grief recovery, while the bioecological model included the same intrapersonal predictors as well as loss system predictors. In sum, the analyses provided evidence that having relatively high levels of death acceptance and religiosity prior to the death of a spouse is associated with improved psychological health in the early stages of widowhood. Although the bioecological growth curve model did not evidence a better fit than the individual model in this study, it remains a useful framework accounting for a broader range of influences, with the loss system as a key to advancing bereavement research. Moreover, psychological adjustment to the death of a loved one is merely one type of life event that can be understood using this model of grief recovery. Although the theoretical and empirical models presented here represent only a limited approximation of the more complex phenomena of a human reaction when a spouse dies, it provides a new, more comprehensive framework for understanding grief and how it changes over time. Perhaps its greatest utility lies in its theoretical conceptualization of a loss system, and how that loss system can be tested using growth curve statistical models as described in Manuscript 2. This novel approach holds great promise for bereavement researchers. In addition, Manuscript 1 showed how researchers can adapt this framework to model different types of loss experiences, particularly those with strong parallels to the death of a loved one, such as relationship dissolution and divorce. Similarly, this model could be applied empirically to loss experiences such as progressive illness, disability, infertility, and disaster. Variables included in the bioecological systems should be modified accordingly to reflect and allow measurement of the type of loss, life circumstances, culture, and context of the population under study. Title: A Bioecological Model of Grief Recovery : Theory and Test of the Model Author: Romo, Daniel L. A primary aim of bereavement research is to alleviate suffering and promote well-being at the junction of life and death for the survivor in an attachment relationship. Bereavement research in the last decade has focused primarily on examining grief recovery within the context of intrapersonal processes. This emphasis has often ignored peer, family, and cultural influences on adjustment to loss. As a result, targeted grief interventions have largely been limited to adaptive and maladaptive factors within the individual. Evidence from recent research suggests the importance of taking into account contextual factors within the social environment that have bidirectional influences on the individual, and function as potential deficits or resources for grief recovery over time. Thus, a comprehensive framework for the simultaneous consideration of person-environment transactions, rather than just a strict emphasis on intrapersonal processes, is essential to advancing the current understanding of grief recovery. To address this gap, this study presents a bioecological model of grief recovery with the addition of a 'loss system' level of influence--capturing characteristics of the deceased, circumstances of the death, and the relationship between the bereaved and the deceased prior to the death--to simultaneously account for the person- and environment-level systems of influence. The implications of this theoretical model are described for two different types of loss: death of spouse in older adults and death of a child. To move this model from theory to real-world application, the viability of the model was tested by empirically contrasting it with an individual-level (intrapersonal) model of grief recovery as applied to spousal bereavement in later life. An archived longitudinal data set (the Changing Lives of Older Couples data) was the basis for growth curve models examining the trajectory of grief several years after death of spouse. The individual-level model focused on the intrapersonal predictors known to influence grief recovery, while the bioecological model included the same intrapersonal predictors as well as loss system predictors. In sum, the analyses provided evidence that having relatively high levels of death acceptance and religiosity prior to the death of a spouse is associated with improved psychological health in the early stages of widowhood. Although the bioecological growth curve model did not evidence a better fit than the individual model in this study, it remains a useful framework accounting for a broader range of influences, with the loss system as a key to advancing bereavement research. Moreover, psychological adjustment to the death of a loved one is merely one type of life event that can be understood using this model of grief recovery. Although the theoretical and empirical models presented here represent only a limited approximation of the more complex phenomena of a human reaction when a spouse dies, it provides a new, more comprehensive framework for understanding grief and how it changes over time. Perhaps its greatest utility lies in its theoretical conceptualization of a loss system, and how that loss system can be tested using growth curve statistical models as described in Manuscript 2. This novel approach holds great promise for bereavement researchers. In addition, Manuscript 1 showed how researchers can adapt this framework to model different types of loss experiences, particularly those with strong parallels to the death of a loved one, such as relationship dissolution and divorce. Similarly, this model could be applied empirically to loss experiences such as progressive illness, disability, infertility, and disaster. Variables included in the bioecological systems should be modified accordingly to reflect and allow measurement of the type of loss, life circumstances, culture, and context of the population under study. Close

• 2. [Article] Preservice counselors' initial perceptions of client grief style : an analogue study

  Grief--the reaction to a significant loss--is a near-universal human experience, from which a subset of grievers (10%-15%) have difficulty recovering, placing them at high risk for negative health and ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Preservice counselors' initial perceptions of client grief style : an analogue study Author: Beckett, L. Catherine Grief--the reaction to a significant loss--is a near-universal human experience, from which a subset of grievers (10%-15%) have difficulty recovering, placing them at high risk for negative health and mental health outcomes (Marks, Jun, & Song, 2007). For those showing substantial distress, counseling has been shown to be an effective intervention (Boerner, Wortman, & Bonnano, 2005; Parkes, 1971). In 2000, Martin and Doka introduced a continuum of adaptive grieving styles, from intuitive (affectively focused) grief to instrumental (cognitively or behaviorally focused) grief. We know that counseling outcomes can be affected by perceptions and biases that counselors have toward clients (Luborsky, Auerbach, Chandler, Cohen, & Bachrach, 1971); however, we do not know whether a counselor’s perception of a client at the start of treatment is impacted by the client’s grief style. The objective of this study is to determine the influence of client grief style on initial counselor perceptions of the client. Utilizing an analogue design, this study explored how client grief style impacted counselors’ clinically related judgments following the viewing of an analogue of an initial counseling interview. Three professional actors were used to create videotapes of three different grief scenarios (bereavement, divorce, and pregnancy loss), with each actor portraying both an intuitive and an instrumental version of each scenario. The client’s grief style was manipulated by alterations in language and affective presentation in a three-by-two design that held the facts of the clinical scenarios, as well as all other aspects of the videotapes, constant. One version of each of the three scenarios (three video clips in all) was shown to a total of 99 preservice counselors in six CACREP-accredited master’s in counseling programs. There were three directional hypotheses developed based upon the extant research literature: (a) counselors would rate the global functioning of intuitive grievers higher than the global functioning of instrumental grievers; (b) counselors will rate their expectations of the therapeutic bond with intuitive grievers higher than their expectations of the therapeutic bond with instrumental grievers; and (c) counselors would be more likely to encourage emotional catharsis among instrumental grievers. Results supported the second hypothesis but not the first and third. Indeed, for the first and third hypotheses, there were significant differences found in the opposite direction. Counselors rated instrumental grievers as higher functioning than intuitive grievers (the opposite of Hypothesis 1), and the likelihood that counselors would encourage emotional catharsis was higher for intuitive grievers (the opposite of Hypothesis 3). Of particular clinical and educational importance was the finding that 66% of participants reported they would encourage emotional catharsis “often,” “very often,” or “always” in treatment with instrumental grievers, an approach that may be contraindicated for this group. Title: Preservice counselors' initial perceptions of client grief style : an analogue study Author: Beckett, L. Catherine Grief--the reaction to a significant loss--is a near-universal human experience, from which a subset of grievers (10%-15%) have difficulty recovering, placing them at high risk for negative health and mental health outcomes (Marks, Jun, & Song, 2007). For those showing substantial distress, counseling has been shown to be an effective intervention (Boerner, Wortman, & Bonnano, 2005; Parkes, 1971). In 2000, Martin and Doka introduced a continuum of adaptive grieving styles, from intuitive (affectively focused) grief to instrumental (cognitively or behaviorally focused) grief. We know that counseling outcomes can be affected by perceptions and biases that counselors have toward clients (Luborsky, Auerbach, Chandler, Cohen, & Bachrach, 1971); however, we do not know whether a counselor’s perception of a client at the start of treatment is impacted by the client’s grief style. The objective of this study is to determine the influence of client grief style on initial counselor perceptions of the client. Utilizing an analogue design, this study explored how client grief style impacted counselors’ clinically related judgments following the viewing of an analogue of an initial counseling interview. Three professional actors were used to create videotapes of three different grief scenarios (bereavement, divorce, and pregnancy loss), with each actor portraying both an intuitive and an instrumental version of each scenario. The client’s grief style was manipulated by alterations in language and affective presentation in a three-by-two design that held the facts of the clinical scenarios, as well as all other aspects of the videotapes, constant. One version of each of the three scenarios (three video clips in all) was shown to a total of 99 preservice counselors in six CACREP-accredited master’s in counseling programs. There were three directional hypotheses developed based upon the extant research literature: (a) counselors would rate the global functioning of intuitive grievers higher than the global functioning of instrumental grievers; (b) counselors will rate their expectations of the therapeutic bond with intuitive grievers higher than their expectations of the therapeutic bond with instrumental grievers; and (c) counselors would be more likely to encourage emotional catharsis among instrumental grievers. Results supported the second hypothesis but not the first and third. Indeed, for the first and third hypotheses, there were significant differences found in the opposite direction. Counselors rated instrumental grievers as higher functioning than intuitive grievers (the opposite of Hypothesis 1), and the likelihood that counselors would encourage emotional catharsis was higher for intuitive grievers (the opposite of Hypothesis 3). Of particular clinical and educational importance was the finding that 66% of participants reported they would encourage emotional catharsis “often,” “very often,” or “always” in treatment with instrumental grievers, an approach that may be contraindicated for this group. Close