by Sabrina Ginesi

Created on: December 04, 2009   Last Updated: March 19, 2010

At some time in most people's lives, the experience of losing someone close will be inevitable. Individuals react to grief in various ways, depending on their attachment prototype in early childhood from their primary care giver, as well as other mediators. Worden outlined four tasks in which people face when dealing with the death of a loved one. Furthermore, interventions can be made to aid a client through the process of working through each task. However, pathological grief signifies a person stuck in grief and factors/dynamics associated with this vary from person to person. I will attempt to describe Worden's four tasks and suggested interventions that enable a client's progress, and discuss the factors/dynamics that might inhibit their grief process.

Derived from concepts by various theorists, Worden outlines four tasks which one will experience during the mourning process. Difficulties arise when therapists assume tasks run concurrently and separately and take this literally, as this often is not the case. One who is grieving a loved one will experience an array of emotions and difficulties at various times and each one must be supported for the mourner to heal, often overlapping tasks until the process is worked through.

Task one is to accept the reality of the loss (Worden, 2003 p27). Mourners often face difficulty and use some type of denial to delay the grief reaction; this is common around sudden traumatic deaths. This task of grieving is for one to squarely face the reality the person is dead, is gone and a reunion is impossible (ibid, p27). This task may be particularly difficult for a mourner who had an enmeshed relationship with the deceased. Searching behaviour may occur, when confusing strangers with the deceased and having to remind himself they are dead. Another denial described by Geoffrey Gorer (1965) is 'mummification', where the mourner retains possessions of the deceased as if they were waiting for their return, and is particularly common when a mother loses a child. Not unusual in the short term yet prolonged denial could indicate a pathological reaction to the grief. Whilst intellectually knowing the deceased is gone the emotional acceptance may need more time as belief and disbelief are intermittent while grappling with this task (ibid, p30).

Task two involves working though the emotional pain (ibid, p30). This can be difficult as being unprepared for the force and nature of the emotions produced from loss can be overwhelming and

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