Publication year
2017
Citation Title
“We hardly ever talk about it”: Emotional responsive attunement in couples after a child's death
Journal Name
Family Process
DOI
10.1111/famp.12274
Summary
Data from 26 Dutch-speaking couple and individual interviews are used to explore the meaning of not talking about the grief experience with a partner following the death of a child to cancer. Four main themes emerged that highlight the importance of talking and not talking as a way of coping with the loss of a child among grieving parents.
Key Findings
Parents discussed how words failed to capture their grief experiences and seemed pointless because they could not bring their child back.
Not talking about their grief with their partners allowed them to distance themselves from the pain of losing a child.
Grief was considered a personal, intimate, and private process, and not talking was used as a way to respect their spouse’s own grieving process.
Parents who chose not to participate in the current study listed reasons for nonparticipation that corresponded with the results from the study.
Implications for Military Professionals
Could help military families identify appropriate resources to support them through the grieving process
Facilitate support groups for Service members and their spouses who have lost a child to increase kinship among those families
Implications for Program Leaders
Provide support services for couples and individual military parents dealing with the loss of a child
Disseminate information about the importance of talking and not talking with a partner to manage grief to military parents who have lost a child
Implications for Policy Makers
Provide support for programs and services that offer grieving military parents and their families resources and information about the grief process
Encourage collaboration among DoD and community-based organizations to provide grieving families with appropriate resources and services
Methods
Dutch couples who lost a child to cancer between 2003 and 2007 at the University Hospital in Leuven, Belgium, were contacted via mail and phone to participate in face-to-face interviews regarding their grief process.
Most couples were interviewed twice (one couple completed a third interview); 16 interviews included both parents, three interviews included the mother only, and one interview included the father only.
Interviews occurred between May 2009 and December 2011.
Participants
Twenty-six parents between the ages of 36-53 years participated (12 fathers and 14 mothers) in the study.
The deceased children died of cancer and were between the ages of 6 months to 18 years.
Participants were culturally Flemish; no other racial or ethnic demographic were provided.
Limitations
Data was analyzed at interview level and therefore, does not capture gender differences in the grieving process for parents who lost a child.
Only parents with children who died of cancer were included in the study; results may not capture the grief experience of parents who lost a child in a different manner (i.e., car accident).
Conducting the interviews with the couple, as opposed to conducting individual interviews, may have influenced how spouses chose to talk about their grief experience.
Avenues for Future Research
Explore the grief process of military parents to better understand the unique challenges a grieving parent may face within the military context
Examine gender differences among grieving parents and explore if the process of not talking about the grief experience differs among other family types (i.e., same sex parents)
Explore how the interview type (i.e., couples versus individual) influences the results
Focus
Civilian
Population Focus
Abstract
Within Western cultural traditions, the idea that parents should talk about the death of their child with each other is deeply rooted. However, across bereaved parent couples there are wide variations in communication about their grief with each other. In this study, we explored the experiences of bereaved couples related to the process of talking and not talking. We used a thematic coding approach to analyze 20 interviews with 26 bereaved parents (11 interviewed as couples, four as individuals). Four main meanings emerged out of our analysis: not talking because of the inadequacy and pointlessness of words in grief, not talking as a way to regulate emotions in daily life, not talking as an expression of a personal, intimate process, and not talking because the partner has the same loss but a different grief process. In addition, we found that the process of talking and not talking can partly be understood as an emotional responsive process on an intrapersonal and interpersonal level. In this process partners search for a bearable distance from their own grief and their partner's, and attune with their relational context. A better understanding of this process is sought in a dialectical approach, emphasizing the value of both talking and not talking in a tense relationship with each other. Implications for clinical work are described.
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