The social context of grief and grieving

Abstract

Research on bereavement has been dominated by intrapersonal perspectives interest being to establish health consequences identify those at risk, and examine (mal)adaptive ways of coping.Yet,grief is also an interpersonal phenomenon. We demonstrate, illustrating from our own research review of the literature, and from the framework of the Dual Process Model of Bereavement, he need to integrate a more social perspective.Placement of grief within social context has the advantage of extending scientific scope beyond the health/medical implications.Furthermore, it allows examination both of the impact of interpersonal variables on the grieving process and of the interdependence of different ways of coping.