The restructuring process that occurs after the relationships that contain core emotional needs for the individual disappear is defined as mourning. The loss or mourning process is not limited to an irreversible death event. It is also a process that aims to adapt to the life ahead, even when many emotional relationships are completed. According to Freud, the mourning process is an effort to transfer the resources of the lost to the rest of life and causes pain in many aspects.
One of the most important research areas of psychology over the years has been the grief response. Mourning response to what has been lost; The nature of the relationship between the individual and the lost person, the meaning the individual attributes to the loss, the form of the loss, the individual's coping strategies and personality characteristics are closely related to the individual's psychosocial support opportunities. For this reason, it can be said that grief is specific to the individual.
American grief therapist J. William Worden stated that the grief reaction that occurs after loss is a task that helps the individual to restructure cognitively and emotionally. Worden describes the task of the normal mourning response as follows: "There must be a place for the lost person in the life of the one left behind that ensures that this place is both connected to the lost and does not prevent the lost person from continuing his life."
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross As a result of his studies and observations on grief, he stated that there are some stages of the grief reaction. According to Kübler-Ross, the grief reaction; It includes the stages of shock and denial, anger, bargaining, depression and resolution (acceptance). The shock and denial phase is characterized by the inability to accept the irreversible loss and reactions often in the form of numbness or freezing. In the anger phase, the loss begins to be accepted and a search for a reason or responsible for the loss occurs. Bargaining is the period when the individual's belief that the loss is irreversible begins to take hold and feelings of hopelessness intensify. In the depression phase, the loss is accepted and complaints of depression are at their most intense level. Dissociation is the final phase in which positive feelings and thoughts about the future are reorganized. If an individual is stuck in any of these stages after a loss, it may cause the grief to be prolonged or complicated.
If the symptoms of grief exceed one year, it may suggest a prolonged grief reaction and necessitate the need for psychological treatment. However, there may be situations that make psychological treatment inevitable in mourning processes that have not exceeded one year. Particularly if the individual's functionality is significantly impaired after the loss, if physical symptoms (such as serious changes in sleep and appetite) cause significant problems, if there are psychotic symptoms (such as delusions or hallucinations), or if there are thoughts of suicide, intervention in the grief response may be necessary, regardless of its duration. In the treatment of grief, grief-specific cognitive interventions and therapy applications can be applied, as well as psychotropic drug treatments when necessary.
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