ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the emotions commonly associated with death or bereavement including numbness, shock, anger, guilt, sadness, and despair that are reflected in the normative theories of death and mourning. The normal emotions associated with grieving in these theories generally relate to a timely, anticipated death that occurs in usual circumstances. The death of a child or young parent is not a usual circumstance, nor is the culture of the hospital. Scientific advances in the control of pain have generated many more opportunities for a relatively pain-free death and for stories about comfortable and peaceful deaths. So that for most people a peaceful death is the perfect death, and a death involving pain and struggle is deemed a failure. Dealing with death can pose anxiety and confusion for professionals with clients, for family members with each other, and for parents with children. Theories can offer guidance, clarity, and the security of a way to proceed.
