By Kevin Chiao, MEd
Every year in beginning of April, many countries and communities in east Asia observe Tomb Sweeping Day, also known as Ching Ming Festival (清明節). Individuals and families commemorate the day by visiting resting places of ancestors and deceased loved ones and show respect and remembrance through a wide range of rituals (e.g., food offerings, burning incense & joss paper, cleaning their graves). Grief and Loss are universal human experiences that are unique and different to everyone and expressed through various rituals and practices that allow us to stay connected with people who we have lost.
Contrary to the some prevalent views on grief, the experience of grief is not a linear process that progress through clear succession of various stages. One of the more recent models that recognizes the recursive, non-linear nature of grief and the broad-spectrum of cognitive and emotional responses to loss is the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement (DPM). DPM postulates that the everyday life experience of grief and loss is underpinned by the dialectical process of loss orientation and restoration orientation. Effective coping with bereavement and loss includes the tending of both forms of stressors and the oscillation between the loss and restoration orientation is necessary and essential for adaptive coping with grief (Stroebe, 1999).
Loss orientation (LO) refers to the grieving person’s focus on aspects of the loss experience itself, which includes the process of confronting, attempting to accept the fact of loss, and reminiscing about the deceased or object of loss.
Loss Orientation:
Grief Work
- Rumination of the object of loss
- Painful repetitious recollection of the loss experience
- Attempts to make sense of the loss and circumstances and events surrounding the loss
Intrusion of Grief
- Involuntary experiences and reminders of the loss
- Often unwanted and can manifest in the form of sleep and dream disturbance and hypervigilance.
Detachment and Reorganizing of Affectionate Bonds. Drawing upon
- Rearranging representations and relationships with the object of loss and oneself.
- Breaking of attachment bonds and gradually adjust to the physical absence of the deceased person or object of loss.
- Allows the continuation of bonds in non-physical forms such as maintaining a spiritual connection with the object of loss
Denial and Avoidance of Restoration Changes.
- Immersion in grief work or loss-oriented stressors
- Refusal to engage in activities after the loss and neglect the necessary maintenance of daily function.
Restoration orientation (RO) refers to the secondary stressors that are associated with the occurrence of a loss or bereavement. For grieving individuals, the experience of loss requires a reorientation in a world that has changed in many ways due to the loss they experienced.
Restoration Orientation:
Attending to life changes
- Tending to responsibilities and changes that are required in everyday life after the loss
- Continuing routines, everyday maintenance of familial and household tasks, and taking on duties
Create a new life after loss
- Often include doing new things such as career changes, trying new hobbies, and forming new relationships and identities
- Engaging in activities that distract one from being in loss-orientation as well as actively deny and avoid grief in order to function and be productive in everyday life (Stroebe, 1999)
Due to the individual and unique nature of grief, people undertake the two orientations on different timelines, with different approaches, and in different proportions, depending on both internal factors and external pressures. Effective coping with bereavement includes dealing with both loss-oriented and restoration-orientated stressors and the oscillation between the two types of stressors is necessary for adaptive coping in grief and loss. Unlike other conceptualization of grief, there is no end goal or time-limit to the oscillation, it is common for people to find themselves being in loss-orientation from time to time even if the loss no longer feels emotionally charged for the individual. It is important to be self-aware and mindful of where we are currently with grief and tend to ourselves through validation, compassion, and care.
References:
Schut, M. S. (1999). The Dual Process Model Of Coping With Bereavement: Rationale And Description. Death Studies, 23(3), 197-224. doi:10.1080/074811899201046
Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (2010). The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement: A Decade on. OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying, 61(4), 273-289. doi:10.2190/om.61.4.b