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Grief
Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying, (2003) by ROBERT KASTENBAUM, KENNETH J. DOKA, JOAN BEDER, REIKO SCHWAB, KENNETH J. DOKA, REIKO SCHWAB, KENNETH J. DOKA, NORMAN L. FARBEROW, MARGARET STROEBE, WOLFGANG STROEBE, HENK SCHUT, LILLIAN M. RANGE
The anger may appear directed against the health and mental health professions who have failed to prevent the suicide, or it may be directed at their social network if it has withdrawn and offered less support than is ordinarily offered for survivors of a death by accident or natural causes. The anger may be directed at a society that condemns suicide and offers less compassion and understanding because a taboo has been violated. David Lester remarks that official agencies in the community often function in such a way that it continually reminds the survivor that the death was not a natural one and creates "unpleasant experiences the bereaved are ill-equipped to handle." Anger with religion may occur when it fails to comfort or creates logistical problems during burial services. Anger at God may appear for his having "let" the suicide happen. Sometimes the anger may be directed at oneself for not having seen the "obvious" clues that the suicide was imminent or for not having prevented the death even though the signs were clear.
A suicide affects family members both individually and collectively. To the extent that suicide carries a stigma, many react to it with silence, secrecy, and even distortion (i.e., denial that death was a suicide). Kenneth Doka has called such deaths "disenfranchised" because their taboo status has resulted in social sanctions. As a result, there is reluctance to mourn openly or publicly. There may be scapegoating with accusations and blaming by other members of the family, fear of hereditary factors, anger at the medical and mental health professions, troublesome involvement of the police and insurance investigators, and possible intrusions by press and other media.
Bereavement for Children
The question of whether children can mourn depends on the definition of mourning. The ability to grieve develops as the child first comprehends the finality of death; the timing of this realization is a subject of debate among scholars. Some find it present in young infants, while others have concluded that it does not appear until adolescence. According to one researcher, Nancy Webb, young children can experience sadness, longing, detachment, and rage, but it cannot be considered mourning until the child is able to understand the finality of the loss and its significance. She argues that children of ages nine to eleven are just beginning to view the world logically and thus able to comprehend abstractions and hypotheses, with the full flowering of this ability developing during adolescence.
Karen Dunne-Maxim, Edward Dunne, and Marilyn Hauser feel that children react to suicide Adolescents may manifest extremes of behavior such as withdrawal and social isolation, while others may become truant, delinquent, and openly aggressive when reacting to a suicide death of a family member or friend. A. TANNENBAUM/CORBIS deaths with feelings very similar to those of adults but with very different behavior. The symptoms have been likened to those characteristic of post-traumatic stress after a disaster, with clinging and whining in small children, regression and collapse of some of the stages of development, and fears and anxieties about usually comfortable situations or people. Older children may become model children, fearful of any activity that might bring censure, possibly because of fears that they in some way have been responsible for the death. Some may try to become a parent to the remaining parent, trying to fill the gap and to assuage his or her grief.
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