ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises several models which have been put forward to describe the human response to bereavement. Kubler-Ross's work considers the path experienced by the bereaved person as a series of stages. M. Stroebe and H. Schut analyse the experience not as stages which may be followed, but as involving two mindsets which can alternate in the bereaved person. William Worden sees the process as involving tasks which have to be accomplished by the bereaved person. Stroebe and Schut recognised the weaknesses of a stage theory, and proposed that the experience is better conceptualised as alternation between two processes. The process are: A loss orientation focused on the gap and the pain caused by the loss of the person who has gone and restoration orientation focused on building a future without the person. William Worden emphasises that bereavement is a process rather than a state, and analyses the experiences of bereaved people as they work through their reactions.
