grief | Dulles Funeral & Cremation Center

Funeral Behavior and Unresolved Grief is the preliminary report of a psychiatric research project titled “Mortality and Grief Studies in Alachua County,” which was funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health. Its purpose was to study people with “unresolved grief” by comparing their “sociotemporal characteristics and funeral behaviors” with people whose grief was considered resolved.¹

Subjects: 24 adults who had lost next-of-kin approximately a year earlier. 16 were under the age of 65, and 8 were over 65. Half were judged to have resolved their grief; the other half were still suffering from unresolved grief. Alachua County, Florida.

The idea that mourners who grieve for a longer time and/or more intensely than others are in any sense abnormal has been questioned by many people since the 1970s when this study was conducted. But whether classified as unresolved, complicated, traumatic, or by any other name, some grief experiences are more extreme than others. Without saying it is pathological, we can say some grief remains unresolved longer.

To better understand if there are certain external factors that might cause people to have longer-lasting grief, or certain behavior associated with long-lasting grief, researchers compared experiences of the two groups of subjects.

Continue reading 1976: Funerals And Unresolved Grief After One Year Of Bereavement →

The First Year of Bereavement reports results of the Harvard Bereavement Study, which was conducted under the auspices of the Harvard Laboratory of Community Psychiatry. Studies of people who have recently experienced funerals are rare because it is hard to find the people. In addition to its prestigious pedigree, this project had access to data from the local office of vital statistics, and thus the researchers found good number of participants who fit the demographic requirements of the study.¹

Subjects: 49 widows and 19 widowers, whose spouses had died within the past year from causes other than suicide or homicide. All under age 45. Several interviews were conducted the first year after death, and a follow-up interview 2-4 years later. Boston.

Topics covered in this project go well beyond funeral experiences but it is extremely valuable for its extensive focus on the latter—which even now, more than half a century later, has only been done a few times. As such, this Harvard study is an important snapshot of one aspect of funerals in the 1960s.

Continue reading 1965-1969: Young Widows and Widowers During First Year of Bereavement →