Although grief reactions have been carefully examined, little information is available on the grief response following the murder of a loved one. Impressions of homicide survivors' grief reactions were obtained by the staff of a family support center who treated ten families that had experienced the loss of a family member by homicide.…

The mass production of books dealing with hitherto taboo subjects for children, such as drug use, divorce, illegitimacy, and death, is a growing trend in children's literature. This paper attempts to demonstrate the inherent difficulties in judging such books critically through a discussion of the handling of death in current children's fiction.…

This paper recognizes murder as a major cause of mortality among adolescents and young adults and addresses the need for research examining the effects of murder on the victim's surviving family members. The information contained in this report was obtained from surveys completed by 237 members of the Parents of Murdered Children support group.…

Although thanatologists agree that grieving is essential in adjusting to the loss of a loved one, numerous questions about what facilitates the grieving process remain. To examine the relationship between funeral and post-funeral ritual and grief adjustment, 50 widowed persons (47 females, 3 males) were interviewed and completed two life…

This study looks at the influence of worldview on long-term survivors of loss and the subsequent identity these survivors assume years after the formal grieving process has occurred. Emphasis is placed on the perspective survivors develop over time. Information from nearly 80 survivors of childhood loss indicated that there are certain patterns in…

Classical models of the grieving process include Freud's concept of withdrawal of ties to the love object called decathexis, and Lindemann's emancipation from the bondage to the deceased involving adjusting to the loss in one's environment and the ability to form new relationships. Most of the models and explanations of the grieving process over…

The Precursors Study, initiated in 1946, has focused on searching for links between psychological patterns and future disease and death. Gathering a broad spectrum of psychobiological characteristics from a large group of medical students, this study has continued year after year. This study examined the role of psychological factors on mortality,…

Research has shown that older persons who have become widowed after many years of marriage maintain deep attachments to their deceased spouses. Case histories, observations and interviews were used to explore some aspects of the persistence of the marital tie after the first few years of mourning had passed. The major element in this tie was…

The value of death education at the elementary school level is discussed. It is pointed out that death education can be helpful in preparing children to cope with death by reducing anxiety, which would enable them to adjust to future experiences. It is suggested that close cooperation between parents, school, and the community is important in…

Although fear of death is recorded in the writings of the oldest major religions, the study of death and the fear of death have only occurred for the last few decades. Death education courses have grown in number since the early 1970's. College students participated in an investigation of the effects of death education on death anxiety by…

The psychological stress produced by life events is actively researched because of the effects this stress has on physical and psychological functioning. Bereavement may be the most stressful of these events and therefore it is the subject of this study. A sample of adults from three different geographical areas of Kentucky was assembled and 71.5…

Experiencing the loss of a loved one can be one of the most traumatic events in a child's life. Grief resolution must be attained no matter how trivial a loss and it becomes even more important when a child's parent dies. School psychologists need to understand how the age of the child influences his ability to grieve and what behaviors might be…

Although widowhood is a disruptive and inevitable phenomenon for many older people, few studies have explored either adjustment to widowhood or the impact of widowhood on the lives of elderly people. Recently widowed persons (N=51), ranging in age from 49 to 83 years old, were interviewed to examine their relatively immediate psychosocial…

If the nature of mourning depends on the relationship between the bereaved and the deceased, then parental mourning following a child's death may be different from mourning following the death of an adult. Parents' (N=145) descriptions of their experiences in the first year after a child's death from cancer or a blood disorder were examined to…

Though many theories of the greater impact of a spouse's death on men than on women derive some support from role theory, little empirical data exist to support the hypotheses. Behavioral studies of widowhood have focused on social participation as a determinant in coping, without studying the survivor's degree of social involvement before the…