About Grief: Situations Like Death, Divorce, And Job Losses

Grief is a psychological term used to describe a body’s response to losses or negative emotional change. In most cases, grief has been associated with bad situations like death. Since times of old, when someone grieves, they are said to be in a stressful or is experiencing bad times. The history of this topic dates back to 1969, when Elizabeth Kubler Ross worked through research to identify the existence of grief and the corresponding stages of grief. However, the grieving action existence since the beginning of the world.

Grieving varies in different cultures, whereby some communities grief their dead through crying and self-reflections while others conduct cultural activities as a way to grief for the dead. People associate grief to death, which is accurate, but there are so many things one can grief over in this life.

These reasons for grieving are the actual causes of bereavement. The term loss is the general cause of grieving because, in essence, grieving is associated with the various types of injuries.

In the modern context, grieving could be in different forms, whereby loss still defines the general cause of grieving. Loss of a loved one or death is the leading cause of grieving in both historical and modern societies. Again, loss of jobs can also call for grieving, especially in the contemporary era, whereby survival requires one to be attached to a post. Finally, divorce for romantic relationships is a cause of grief, especially for people who are in a deep state of love.

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This paper examines death, divorce, and loss of jobs, as the primary causes of grief while also discussing their effects. Bate’s work of understanding death gives the various effects of death with more weight given to children. Death, by definition, is the altering of all the body functions in any living organism. It results from natural causes like old age or other human causes that include; suicide, trauma, homicide, hunger and starvation, dehydration, accidents, and fatal injuries. Once a person dies, the loved ones remain deep sorrow and grief, which explains why death causes anguish (Bates and Julia 40).

This phenomenon of death has various effects on both an individual and society. However, unlike other causes, death affects different people, and its impact varies from one person to another. First, Bates states that death results in untold suffering and depression for family members. Children and spouses of the diseased go through hard times when faced with death. While community members may play a role in helping them recover from the loss, the members have to go through long periods of grieving, long after the burial processes. For these reasons, death results in both sorrow and grief for family members. In society, deaths have huge impacts on society’s composition and structure. For instance, if a school teacher or student dies, the whole school society suffers significantly with the classmates and course teachers feeling more bereaved. For the case of a teacher, the class under the late teacher is left with a massive gap because learners were already used to this specific teacher. Bates et al. note that most learners are hugely affected by the activities of their teachers (Bates and Julia 40). For instance, the Early Childhood Development learners develop a strong bond with their teachers. Losing such a figure as a teacher in society leads to a change in both the organization of the school and the community. These children suffer huge setbacks in developing another relationship with a teacher.

Unlike a family, society could be indirectly related to the dead individual, but the effects of death are just as severe as those of the family members. Other scenarios of how societies are affected by deaths are the loss of a prominent politician, which results in elections, loss of an employer, which result in loss of jobs (Volkan, and Elizabeth 15). Hence, deaths have huge impacts on a society’s organization and structure. Mariah Heaton is a sociological writer who researches social issues like divorces, religion, culture, and marriages. Through her work, ‘the Negative Impact of Divorce,’ she manages to outline the various outcomes of divorce on both the children, the family, and the spouses. Generally, all the effects result in untold grief for the family members, with children suffering the largest share of the misery (Eaton 4). Heaton says that while most televised episodes show divorce as a period of joy or drama, the reality is that divorces lead to long periods of grieving.

People usually isolate themselves during this period, primarily to cool off the effects of the divorce. While in some cases, the divorce could seem a way of gaining the lost love, time, and freedom, most people argue that the post-divorce period brings in much agony. In a marriage, whether violent, supportive, or peaceful, both the spouses have more than one thing that keeps them moving in this marriage. For this reason, separation renders these people to emotional stress that requires them to grief for the loss of the family. Divorce leads to loss of money and resources for both of the spouses. In the US, several policies governing divorces require payment or sharing of facilities acquired during the marriage period. For instance, a divorcing family may fail to agree on how to deal with their flourishing business. The results are that the family will end up selling the business. Cars owned by the family need to be sold or distributed between the two spouses (Eaton 4). While this may not seem to be a direct loss of resources, the reality is that if these commodities were to remain in the family, the family would boast huge benefits and success in terms of wealth creation. Additionally, divorces involve numerous legal processes that require the divorcing couple to hire lawyers.

By employing the legal teams, the family undergoes enormous losses. Economic factors have, for over long periods, been attributed to grieves. For this reason, divorces cause grieving for both children, spouses, and the family in general. Jennie E. Brand is a Statistics and Sociology Professor and works as a director of CSS in California. In her evaluation of the impacts of job loss, she establishes several outcomes associated with the loss of a job. Numerous effects associate with job loss, with the loss of income being the most severe (Brand 38). Loss of a career implies that it can no longer provide for their family. In most cases, when one is not able to provide for the family, alcoholism and smoking make these people cool off their emotional distress. For a person dealing with addiction to evade stress, it easy to notice that they are grieving something they lost. For this reason, losing a job leads to loss of income, which calls for grieving. Loss of jobs leads to results in negative impacts on both the emotional and physical health. Disappointment as a result of failure to meet the job’s requirements makes one feel hopeless.

For an individual trying to find a better job after sacking, this feeling of hopelessness is adverse. Lifestyle changes due to loss of a job are also a direct link between loss of employment and grieving. For instance, an officeholder losing their jobs implies that they have to shift their energy and time to more physical jobs (Brand 39). This, in turn, affects their physical health. Disappointments and hopelessness, on the other hand, change the emotional health to a great extent. For this reason, job loss causes poor psychological and physical health resulting in grieving from the person who lost a job. In conclusion, deaths, job losses, and divorces are the critical causes of grief, and their impacts show their connection to the grieving concept. Understanding these three causes is crucial for both psychologists and society because, through this understanding, grieving can be dealt with.

The belief that death is a natural cause of grief will result in a generation of people who can help others through both deaths. Just like in death, divorce, and job losses occur in agony, and in helping people with this problem, it is essential to understand the causes and effects of the issues. Little research on grieving has been done with a large area of study remaining uncovered. First, research should include how to prevent grieving and how the problem should be incorporated in school curriculums because it affects people in day to day activities.