Grief After Non-Death Losses

Abstract

Patricia and James met one morning at a coffee shop. Understanding the role of the assumptive world in everyday life provides a broad framework for appreciating the potentially adaptive role of grief in both death and non-death loss experiences. This chapter briefly discusses different types of non-death loss experiences and their implications. Chronic sorrow differs from prolonged grief disorder in that it occurs in a living loss, and it is not an anomaly or a sign that something is wrong. Chronic sorrow is defined by Roos as "a set of pervasive, profound, continuing, and recurring grief responses resulting from a significant loss or absence of crucial aspects of oneself (self-loss) or another living person (other-loss) to whom there is a deep attachment". People can become frozen in the grief because there is no answer, no clear-cut defined loss and no way to recognize what has happened.