ABSTRACT
Bereavement is most often understood as both an event of loss and a process of adjusting to that loss. This chapter refers to both grief and mourning to describe the response to the loss of a significant other, such as a close family member, to death. While no human being can avoid exposure to loss and bereavement, the ways in which people understand, experience, and respond to loss vary greatly. In the Two-Track Model of Bereavement, the bereavement response is conceptualized as occurring along two main multidimensional tracks. The first track focuses on how people function on a variety of dimensions of their biopsychosocial functioning. The second track is concerned with how people maintain and transform their relationship bond to the highly significant person of the deceased. The nature of the continuing bond, its accessibility, and its affective valence will be a significant part of her grief and mourning.
