ABSTRACT
The premise of this chapter is that public tragedies inherently contain elements that tend to complicate mourning in persons bereaved of individuals who die in such tragedies. In this chapter, the term public tragedy refers to a calamitous event that brings death to one or more people and arouses great grief and oftentimes horror in its social audience. This chapter will first analyze how deaths in public tragedies predispose to complicated mourning and then identify selected perspectives and intervention strategies to target and address potential complications in the bereavement of the survivors. The purpose is to encourage an appreciation of the dynamics of trauma and complicated mourning following public tragedy deaths and to sensitize the reader to other aspects of public tragedy that can further complicate bereavement. The hope is that this information will help the reader to recognize, evaluate, and treat mourning that is complicated by public tragedy.
