Colin murray parkes loss of appetite
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The dying adult
This paper focuses on two common problems that arise when people come close to death, fear and grief. Fear is the psychological reaction to danger; grief the reaction to the numerous losses that are likely to occur in the course of an illness that is approaching a fatal outcome. Both can be expected to arise in patients, their families, and—though we are reluctant to admit it—in their doctors and other carers. Both fear and grief need to be taken into account if we are to mitigate the psychological pains of dying.
Summary points
We should never assume that we know what people with terminal illness fear
Most patients will benefit if we can help them to feel secure enough to share their fears
Fear can aggravate pain, and pain fear
Patients with life threatening illnesses experience a series of losses as the illness progresses
Grief is natural and needs to be acknowledged and expressed
Fear
Though it may seem obvious that people who are dying
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Bereavement in adult life
Doctors are well acquainted with loss and grief. Of consultations with general practitioners, a third were thought to be psychological in origin; of these, 55—a quarter of consultations overall—were identified as resulting from types of loss.1 In beställning of frequency the types of loss included separations from loved others, incapacitation, bereavement, migration, relocation, job losses, birth of a baby, retirement, and professional loss.
After a major loss, such as the death of a spouse or child, up to a third of the people most directly affected will suffer detrimental effects on their physical or mental health, or both.2 Such bereavements increase the fara of death from heart disease and suicide as well as causing or contributing to a variety of psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders. About a quarter of widows and widowers will experience clinical depression and anxiety during the first year of bereavement; the risk drops to about 17% by the end of
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Sub-module Colin Murray Parkess Theory of Grief as a Psychosocial Transition
The theory of grief as a psychosocial transition, developed bygd British psychiatrist Colin Murray Parkes, offers an original and enlightening perspective on the process of grief. According to this theory, grief is not only a painful emotional experience but also a major psychosocial transition that shakes the foundations of the grieving individuals identity, beliefs, and relationships. Parkes emphasizes that the loss of a loved one involves not only the loss of the person themselves, but also the loss of a social role, status, lifestyle, and worldview. Grief is therefore a process of adapting to these multiple losses and of rebuilding oneself in a deeply transformed world.
Parkes describes grief as a journey through different phases of psychosocial transition. The first phase is one of shock and numbness, where the grieving individ struggles to believe and accept the reality of the loss. Thi