Loss and grief: Personal stories of doctors and other healthcare professionals

This collection of personal narratives is just that: stories intended to chronicle the journeys of a small number of health clinicians and other professionals who have been struck by personal illness and/or loss. What these stories do not assume is that there are answers to the universal experiences of loss and grief, courage, and survival implicit in the telling. While the past is gone, the meaning of it, however, is forever in flux, forever being worked and reworked in our conscious and unconscious minds. Each memory is a redoing of what it represents and brings forth within our sense of ourselves and in our relationships with one another. Grief challenges us physically, emotionally, and psychologically to recast the loss again and again. And, in recasting the past and the passage of time, refashioning memory to meet the needs of the moment in which the lost object and our response to it either helps us to move forward in our life or keeps us stuck, unable to engage with a future that requires acceptance of giving up the life lived before. The COVID pandemic further highlighted the internalization of expectations. Drilled into us in training is the "prime directive", the ethical responsibility of patient care and that one should deal with personal things on one's one time. The stories written in this collection were a draft perhaps unending versions telling of the experience. Some stories were written in one setting, others over many weeks or months as the writer lost and regained footing along the tale's trail. The shame, the sadness and weeping, the anger and guilt, and the shame of feeling relief of the pain and suffering for ourselves or those we love(d) and the "weakness" of not being able to manage it all echo through these stories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Panel 19, Number 9, East: In Memoriam to Larry Insel

The author on his first trip to Washington, DC, in 1993, squeezed in a day of sightseeing between his meetings and conferences. When the author came upon the Vietnam War Memorial, he was suddenly seized with the urge to find the name of a long-lost high school friend, Larry. This poem came to him as he sat in the Metro train, making his way back to the hotel outside Baltimore. The author scribbled it on the back of an envelope. The Vietnam Era shaped the author's life. Because of the lottery, the author and his friends struggled to find ways to avoid fighting a war they didn't believe in. Larry's decision to join the armed forces early on stood in contrast to the angst and struggles the rest of our close friends experienced. The author's sense of loss during the Vietnam War years echoes today's COVID-19 era tragedy. Then and now, there are so many losses: not just relatives and friends, but also the loss of a unified voice of comfort in the face of profound polarities, the persistent lack of civility in public discourse, and the uncertainty-and at times terror-that we all collectively face. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Loss and grief: Personal stories of doctors and other healthcare professionals

This collection of personal narratives is just that: stories intended to chronicle the journeys of a small number of health clinicians and other professionals who have been struck by personal illness and/or loss. What these stories do not assume is that there are answers to the universal experiences of loss and grief, courage, and survival implicit in the telling. While the past is gone, the meaning of it, however, is forever in flux, forever being worked and reworked in our conscious and unconscious minds. Each memory is a redoing of what it represents and brings forth within our sense of ourselves and in our relationships with one another. Grief challenges us physically, emotionally, and psychologically to recast the loss again and again. And, in recasting the past and the passage of time, refashioning memory to meet the needs of the moment in which the lost object and our response to it either helps us to move forward in our life or keeps us stuck, unable to engage with a future that requires acceptance of giving up the life lived before. The COVID pandemic further highlighted the internalization of expectations. Drilled into us in training is the "prime directive", the ethical responsibility of patient care and that one should deal with personal things on one's one time. The stories written in this collection were a draft perhaps unending versions telling of the experience. Some stories were written in one setting, others over many weeks or months as the writer lost and regained footing along the tale's trail. The shame, the sadness and weeping, the anger and guilt, and the shame of feeling relief of the pain and suffering for ourselves or those we love(d) and the "weakness" of not being able to manage it all echo through these stories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Panel 19, Number 9, East: In Memoriam to Larry Insel

The author on his first trip to Washington, DC, in 1993, squeezed in a day of sightseeing between his meetings and conferences. When the author came upon the Vietnam War Memorial, he was suddenly seized with the urge to find the name of a long-lost high school friend, Larry. This poem came to him as he sat in the Metro train, making his way back to the hotel outside Baltimore. The author scribbled it on the back of an envelope. The Vietnam Era shaped the author's life. Because of the lottery, the author and his friends struggled to find ways to avoid fighting a war they didn't believe in. Larry's decision to join the armed forces early on stood in contrast to the angst and struggles the rest of our close friends experienced. The author's sense of loss during the Vietnam War years echoes today's COVID-19 era tragedy. Then and now, there are so many losses: not just relatives and friends, but also the loss of a unified voice of comfort in the face of profound polarities, the persistent lack of civility in public discourse, and the uncertainty-and at times terror-that we all collectively face. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Impact of Covid-19 on mental health and associated losses

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn have negatively affected mental health and created new barriers for people already suffering from mental illness. Hospitals may have become mostly corona virus receiving stations and patients with cancer, mental health patients and other health conditions were no longer a priority during the first few months of the pandemic. Many patients with these conditions have had their treatment rightly stopped and saw a wider scale rationing of services in the first few months of the pandemic, while medical or non-medical needs continue to be demanding, resulting in simultaneous impact. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Death, grief and loss in the context of COVID-19

This book provides detailed analysis of the manifold ways in which COVID-19 has influenced death, dying and bereavement. Through three parts: Reconsidering Death and Grief in COVID-19;Institutional Care and COVID-19;and the Impact of COVID-19 in Context, the book explores COVID-19 as a reminder of our own and our communities' fragile existence, but also the driving force for discovering new ways of meaning making, performing rites and rituals, and conceptualizing death, grief and life. Contributors include scholars, researchers, policymakers and practitioners, accumulating in a multi-disciplinary, diverse and international set of ideas and perspectives that will help the reader examine closely how COVID-19 has invaded social life and (re)shaped trauma and loss. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of death studies, biomedicine, and end of life care as well as those working in sociology, social work, medicine, social policy, cultural studies, anthropology, psychology, counseling and nursing more broadly. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Measuring Grief in the Context of Traumatic Loss: A Systematic Review of Assessment Instruments.

Following traumatic loss, defined as the death of a loved one due to unexpected or violent circumstances, adults may experience a myriad of grief-related problems. Given the addition of Prolonged Grief Disorders into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders Fifth Edition, Text-Revision and influx of unexpected deaths due to the global Coronavirus pandemic, there is heightened interest in the measurement of grief-related processes. We conducted a systematic review according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines to identify measures of grief used in studies of adults who experienced traumatic loss. Searches yielded 164 studies that used 31 unique measures of grief-related constructs. The most commonly used instrument was the Inventory of Complicated Grief-Revised. Half of the measures assessed constructs beyond diagnosable pathological grief responses. Given the wide variation and adaptations of measures reviewed, we recommend greater testing and uniformity of measurement across the field. Future research is needed to adapt and/or design measures to evaluate new criteria for Prolonged Grief Disorder.

The COVID-19 Disappeared: From Traumatic to Ambiguous Loss and the Role of the Internet for the Bereaved in Italy.

In Italy, in the very first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic there was a dramatic rise in mortality. However, families were forbidden because of lockdown regulations to be with their loved ones at their deathbeds or to hold funerals. This qualitative study examined bereavement experiences among family members, how they processed their grief, and how they used social networks in particular by uploading photographs during the working-through of bereavement. The sample was composed of 40 individuals aged 23-63 (80% women) from different Italian cities severely impacted by the virus, including a subgroup from the province of Bergamo, which was the city with the highest mortality rate during that time. All interviews were conducted by phone, Skype, or Zoom. Then, the transcriptions underwent a thematic analysis using Atlas.ti. The main themes that emerged were: abandonment anger and guilt, dehumanized disappeared, derealization and constant rumination, and social support and the importance of sharing photos on Facebook. Importantly, the use of social networks proved to be a valuable source of support and photographs were a powerful tool in facilitating the process of mourning by encouraging narration and sharing. Grief had a complex profile: on the one hand, it was traumatic and characterized by all the risk factors causing mourners to experience prolonged grief, but on the other, some features were similar to ambiguous loss (that occurs without closure and clear understanding) because of the impossibility to be with their relatives in their final moments. The possible relationships between ambiguous loss, the use of internet, and the risk of prolonged grief are discussed.

Mourning and Management of the COVID-19 Health Emergency in the Priestly Community: Qualitative Research in a Region of Northern Italy Severely Affected by the Pandemic.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is causing major social changes to which significant psychological effects are linked. During the first phase of the pandemic wave in Italy, whilst there was insufficient information about the phenomenon and the strategies to safeguard the population against it, many categories of people, whose professions required constant contact with the public, were affected by the contagion. Aims: The literature has shown how religiousness can support the management of stress due to diseases and health risks. In relation to this, the current study wanted to investigate how priests managed the early stages of the pandemic. This work, therefore, aimed to investigate the psychological experiences related to the contagion and the eventual death of colleagues as well as the resilience strategies activated by the priests during the process. Participants: The research involved 12 Catholic priests, all male and aged between 42 and 63 years. They came from the same pastoral community in one of the regions in Northern Italy that were most affected during the first phase of the pandemic. Those ministers had been constantly in contact with the faithful of their parishes since the breakout of the virus. Methodology: A qualitative research design was adopted, and in-depth interviews were conducted. The dialogues aimed at investigating the deep, personal and relational experiences of the priests, together with their concerns and the tools they adopted to manage anxiety. The texts obtained from the interviews were subjected to thematic analysis. Results: The areas studied concerned the experiences of the participants during the lockdown, the implications of social distancing and lack of funeral rituality and, finally, the importance of prayer as a resilience factor. Conclusions: In the current scenario dominated by the pandemic, it is significant and stimulating to understand and reflect on the functions and roles of the experiences of faith, particularly the act of elaborating the process of mourning due to COVID-19.