ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2, the various historical as well as the cultural perspectives that have influenced society’s perception of death-related loss and the social response to grief and mourning are examined. In addition, the vantage of those closest to the survivors, such as friends and relatives, is considered. Also covered are some of the more popular viewpoints of grief and loss that provided the basis for subsequent studies on the subject. Our society has experienced rapidly advancing medical and scientific technology alongside innovative psychological research and social considerations of the concept of loss and bereavement. Freud is often credited with the first systematic studies of loss and bereavement; however, research that had its origins in the “death movement” of the 1950s and 1960s has extended the dominant views of the grief and bereavement process. Often, these earlier studies were encapsulated by the so-called “stage-theories.” What is more, the research largely focused on the resolution of intra-psychic conflicts of childhood, e.g. those pertaining to loss and separation, along with grief’s presumed progression from an acute or beginning phase to its resolution. The chapter concludes with a description of bereavement as a complex and multiply determined process with dynamic situational, societal, cultural, and personal factors effecting outcomes, rather than a predictable and linear patterning of emotional responses or stages.
