Older Women and Grief: A New Direction for Research

ABSTRACT

While the grief of older women is often assumed to result from recent losses associated with the aging process, the grief reaction of many older women may be influenced by much earlier losses which are unique to women. We propose the effect of these unique losses may complicate the grief process by intensifying both the emotional and physical reaction to recent losses. We encourage researchers to consider losses which are unique to women in the research on grieving in the later stages of life, so that we may understand the impact of such losses.