ABSTRACT
The loss of an important person or thing initiates grief and mourning. In psychological literature a grief reaction and a mourning process are often not differentiated. Norman Itzkowitz (2001) wrote:
Although dictionaries give grieving and mourning as synonymous, for me they are not the same emotionally. To grieve and experience sorrow that accompanies it is a much more transitory matter than mourning. Mourning is a process, and you have to go through the entire process and emerge at the other end before you can let go of the deceased. As such, it takes time. Dictionaries neither grieve nor mourn, otherwise they would know the difference.
