Grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, spiritual and philosophical dimensions. While the terms are often used interchangeably, bereavement refers to the state of loss, while grief is the reaction to that loss.
A crisis hotline is a phone number people can call to get immediate emergency telephone counseling, usually by trained volunteers. The first such service was founded in England in 1951 and such hotlines have existed in most major cities of the English speaking world at least since the mid-1970s. Initially set up to help those contemplating suicide, many have expanded their mandate to deal more generally with emotional crises. Similar hotlines operate to help people in other circumstances, including rape, bullying, self-harm, runaway children, human trafficking, and people who identify as LGBT or intersex. Despite crisis hotlines being common, their effectiveness in reducing suicides is unclear.
Jane Tewson CBE is a British charity worker and the originator of several charitable organisations and ideas for community strengthening in the UK and Australia.
Re-evaluation Counseling (RC) is a peer-based counseling procedure – 'co-counseling' – in which people aim to help each other deal with the effects of emotional hurt. The theory and practice of RC were developed in Seattle in the United States by Harvey Jackins beginning in the 1950s. In the early 1970s, the Re-evaluation Counseling Community was formed, made up of local groups of Co-Counselors in Seattle and beyond. The theory developed to recognize the importance of challenging oppressions such as sexism and racism, and working to eliminate them. RC now teaches co-counseling and holds workshops throughout the world. While membership of the RC Community requires only a commitment to a one-point program of using the co-counseling process, the community has a number of projects that directly tackle the issues of racism, sexism, anti-semitism and the climate emergency. The International Re-evaluation Counseling Community is based in Shoreline, Washington, USA. It was led by Harvey Jackins until his death in 1999. It is currently led by his son Tim Jackins.
René Árpád Spitz was an Austrian-American psychoanalyst. He is best known for his analysis of hospitalized infants in which he found links between marasmus and death with unmothered infants. Spitz also made significant contributions to the school of ego psychology.
The loss of a pet or an animal to which one has become emotionally bonded oftentimes results in grief which can be comparable with the death of a human loved one, or even greater, depending on the individual. The death can be felt more intensely when the owner has made a decision to end the pet's life through euthanasia. While there is strong evidence that animals can feel such loss for other animals, this article focuses on human feelings, when an animal is lost, dies or otherwise is departed.
Disenfranchised grief is a term describing grief that is not acknowledged as legitimate by society. For example, a loss may be seen as too small or the relationship too distant to justify grieving. Traditional forms of grief are more widely recognized and supported. There are few support systems, rituals, traditions, or institutions such as bereavement leave available to those experiencing disenfranchised grief.
Variety, the Children's Charity is a charitable organization founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1927.
Food rescue, also called food recovery or food salvage, is the practice of gleaning edible food that would otherwise go to waste from places such as restaurants, grocery stores, produce markets, or dining facilities and distributing it to local emergency food programs.
Grief counseling is a form of psychotherapy that aims to help people cope with the physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and cognitive responses to loss. These experiences are commonly thought to be brought on by a loved person's death, but may more broadly be understood as shaped by any significant life-altering loss.
Children's Institute Inc. (CII) is a nonprofit organization that provides services to children and families healing from the effects of family and community violence within Los Angeles. Founded in 1906 by Minnie Barton, Los Angeles's first female probation officer, the organization was first designed to help troubled young women who found themselves adrift in Los Angeles." The organization has since expanded its services to at-risk youth in Los Angeles who are affected by child abuse, neglect domestic and gang violence as well as poverty. CII is a multi-service organization that combines evidence-based clinical services, youth development programs and family support services designed to address the whole child and entire family. The organization provides various forms of trauma support—including therapy, intervention services, parenting workshops, early childcare programs and other support services offered in English, Spanish and Korean.
With 1.28 percent of the adult population estimated by UNAIDS to be HIV-positive in 2006, Papua New Guinea has one of the most serious HIV/AIDS epidemics in the Asia-Pacific subregion. Although this new prevalence rate is significantly lower than the 2005 UNAIDS estimate of 1.8 percent, it is considered to reflect improvements in surveillance rather than a shrinking epidemic. Papua New Guinea accounts for 70 percent of the subregion's HIV cases and is the fourth country to be classified as having a generalized HIV epidemic.
George A. Bonanno is a professor of clinical psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, U.S.A. He is responsible for introducing the controversial idea of resilience to the study of loss and trauma. He is known as a pioneering researcher in the field of bereavement and trauma. The New York Times on February 15, 2011, stated that the current science of bereavement has been "driven primarily" by Bonanno. Scientific American summarized a main finding of his work, "The ability to rebound remains the norm throughout adult life." In 2019, Bonanno was honored with the James McKeen Cattell award from the Association of Psychological Science "for a lifetime of intellectual achievements in applied psychological research and their impact on a critical problem in society at large" and by the International Positive Psychology Association for "distinguished lifetime contributions to positive psychology."
The Dougy Center, The National Center for Grieving Children & Families is a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon that offers support groups and services to grieving children and young adults. Its peer support program and network of children's grief services make the organization the first of its kind in the United States. 500 independent programs around the world are based on its model, more than 300 of which have staff who were trained by the organization's staff. The Dougy Center serves 400 children and 250 adults from the Portland metropolitan area each month, free of charge. Its main building is located in the Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood, and its satellite locations in Canby and Hillsboro are called The Dougy Center Walker's House and The Dougy Center Linklater Commons, respectively.
Christina Rasmussen is a Greek–American crisis intervention counselor and author. She is best known for writing Second Firsts, a 2013 book introducing a new model of grief based on the science of neuroplasticity, as well as creating a grief counseling organization of the same name.
The dual process model of coping is a model for coping with grief developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut. They studied grief in their work "The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement: A Decade On". In this study, the models of coping were examined and how it could be of benefit compared to others.
Short-term energy-relieving behavior (STERB) is continuously repeated, sometimes involuntary or compulsive, behavior for releasing the build-up of energy caused by unresolved emotions or trauma.
Miscarriage and grief are both an event and subsequent process of grieving that develops in response to a miscarriage. Almost all those experiencing a miscarriage experience grief. This event is often considered to be identical to the loss of a child and has been described as traumatic. But the vast majority of those who have suffered both will tell you they are nothing alike. Losing a child is in a category of its own when it comes to grief. "Devastation" is another descriptor of miscarriage. Grief differs from the emotion sadness. Sadness is an emotion along with grief, on the other hand, is a response to the loss of the bond or affection was formed and is a process rather than one single emotional response. Grief is not equivalent to depression. Grief also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, and philosophical dimensions. Bereavement and mourning refer to the ongoing state of loss, and grief is the reaction to that loss. Emotional responses may be bitterness, anxiety, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust and blaming others; these responses may persist for months. Self-esteem can be diminished as another response to miscarriage. Not only does miscarriage tend to be a traumatic event, women describe their treatment afterwards to be worse than the miscarriage itself.
Ecological grief, also known as climate grief, can be a psychological response to loss caused by environmental destruction or climate change.
