Grief Counseling in the Schools

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that grief counseling in schools has grown as a discipline in response to teen suicides, natural disasters, bombings, and shootings. The author points out that trauma experts handle the immediate aftershocks of disaster, and, once they leave, grief counselors take over to provide longer-term help for those who have suffered a loss. This paper concludes that, with school suicides and other traumatic events on the increase, school officials have to be aware of these possibilities and try to provide for them in their planning.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Teenage Suicide
Grief Counseling
Approaches to Grief
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"While bereavement is the state of having lost a significant other to death, grief is the personal response to the loss and mourning is the public expression of that loss. Bereavement is an intensely demanding, multidimensional adaptive process and so should be seen as both an opportunity for significant personal growth and a vector of disease when its mental and physical health consequences are considered. Some one third of all bereaved people incur problems for which professional assistance is indicated, and among the problems encountered are increased use of tobacco, alcohol, sedatives, and anxiolytics by the bereaved. Depression syndromes are seen in nearly one half of all grieving people, while 10 percent suffer major depression. Also possible is health deterioration lasting 13 months or longer, including increased physical symptoms and illness, severe depressive mood, and increased health services utilization and hospitalization; this is seen in 15 to 25 percent of the widowed."

More papers on Grief Counseling in the Schools:

• Research Paper # 97384 : "Grief Counseling"
• Essay # 54341 : "Grief Counseling for Teenagers after the Death of a Friend"
• Term Paper # 104311 : "Public Relations and the Schools"

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