ABSTRACT
For many people death is synonymous with darkness and the unknown and for many thousands of years it has challenged the world’s greatest philosophers. Different civilisations and different cultures have interpreted and reinterpreted the meaning and implications of death and from this exercise some of the world’s great religions have been spawned. Centuries ago, the care of the bereaved—whether widow, widower or orphan—was a corporate responsibility. Family and friends were then able to identify themselves with the sorrow in their midst and in their corporate expression of grief lay the key to healing of both body and mind. It has been suggested by psychiatrists that abnormal reactions to the death of a child are the result of either an exaggeration or a prolongation of those symptoms mentioned earlier. It would seem that they occur when grief has either been postponed or delayed following the death.
