In order to provide the best support possible to grieving youth it is important to understand how bereavement impacts adolescent development and how adolescent development impacts bereavement. In this article, prominent youth bereavement author, David Balk, explores these two key components focusing on cognitive, behavioral, and affective…

Background: Research on resilience in the aftermath of potentially traumatic life events (PTE) is still evolving. For decades, researchers have documented resilience in children exposed to corrosive early environments, such as poverty or chronic maltreatment. Relatively more recently, the study of resilience has migrated to the investigation of…

Theoretical arguments and empirical evidence demonstrate the limited utility of a narrow construction of "normal" grief. Sudden and violent death, the young age of the deceased, and perceptions of death preventability are associated with grief reactions that extend beyond an expected grief response. Interviews were conducted with 21…

In this review article, the authors integrate the theoretical, empirical, and clinical literature relevant to the phenomenon of college student bereavement. They synthesize information on two theories of mourning that appear to fit well with the experience of bereaved college students with information about the developmental, cohort, and…

The purpose of this article is to explore how and why younger Internet users of social networking platforms such as MySpace and Facebook maintain connections with those who have died or been killed. This article, therefore, examines the blurring or blending of interpersonal communication and mass communication via the web as what once was very…

Compared parents (N=40) whose adult children died in traffic accidents to parents (N=24) whose adult children died of cancer. Cancer parents tended to experience loss less painfully than did accident parents. Differences between groups were explained by older age of children at death and less intense expression of grief. Circumstances of death…

The purpose of this article is to guide parents, guardians, and teachers, who wish to utilize the therapeutic qualities of literature, in aiding a grieving child. In a child's first decade of life, the first experience he or she has with death often is the very distressing loss of a beloved pet. This first introduction to the cycle of living and…

Examined reactions of 38 older women to death of close friends. Sense of loss women felt resulted in development of new and closer relationships with other friends and relatives. Women's advice to others who had lost close friend was to remember friend, seek out new friendships, and be active. Found differences according to age, marital status,…

Health professionals and educators should develop their abilities to educate about death and to comfort the bereaved. Due to lower death rates, the lack of philosophical religious views, and distorted perceptions of death contributed by television, death has become a mystery instead of a segment of the common experience. Particularly when a child…

Though many theories of the greater impact of a spouse's death on men than on women derive some support from role theory, little empirical data exist to support the hypotheses. Behavioral studies of widowhood have focused on social participation as a determinant in coping, without studying the survivor's degree of social involvement before the…

This study was designed to investigate bereavement reactions and self-concept in 33 white middle and upper-middle class adolescents (14 to 19 years old) whose siblings had died. Participants completed the Offer Self Image Questionnaire for Adolescents (SIQ) and were interviewed regarding bereavement and self-concept. Specific bereavement variables…