Grief Communication: Exploring Disclosure and Avoidance Across the Developmental Spectrum

Abstract

Communicating about the death of a close other is an important, yet understudied process, particularly amongst children, adolescents, and young adults. Guided by the tenets of the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement (DPM; Stroebe & Schut, 1999), inductive analyses of 48 in-person, in-depth interviews (12 youth and 36 young adults) suggested that participants did disclose, avoid, and oscillate when coping. In addition, four prominent themes emerged within the participants’ narratives: (a) stigmatic death, (b) religiosity, (c) social support satisfaction, and (d) role model enactment. The results suggested several directions for future research and interventions focused on communication in child-centered, death-related grief.

Keywords:

• Coping
• Development
• Grief
• Grief Communication
• Oscillation

Notes

^1. The labels “young bereaved individual” and “bereaved youth” are used interchangeably to represent children, adolescents, and young adults combined.

^2. All names have been changed for confidentiality purposes.

^3. Dialogue depicting cause of death is included in every excerpt. The “…” indicates that the text following occurred later in the interview.

^4. Robby’s guardian noted “murder in self-defense” under his father’s cause of death on the demographic questionnaire. The interviewer e-mailed the guardian several days later to verify that all details had been included regarding the death, and no indication of cancer was ever communicated.