Abstract
Loss of a significant member is the major crisis that a family has to face. If the system has not the necessary adaptive resources, the family bereavement can end up with the disappearance of the system.
Bereavement has also an individual component and a great socio-cultural impact, which have been widely studied, while the necessary attention has not been given to the systemic dimension of grief. Issues such as the evolution of grief in the family, the diagnosis of a dysfunctional family grieving, the risk factors for its appearance, the assumption of the role of the “mourned” in the family, hidden or deferred bereavement, or systemic intervention with the grieving family are fundamental issues that the systemic model must incorporate into its therapeutic arsenal.
An evaluation of the family functioning and its adaptive capacities should always be carried out, especially in those processes of mourning with greater risk to become dysfunctional.
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Notes
- 1.
The extent of the period indicated above is due to socio-cultural influences that have a significant impact on what is considered a “normal” duration of a mourning process. Up to 12 months is considered normal in any culture; over and above 24 months seems to us a time from which the mourning process may be considered “complicated”.
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Pereira, R. (2018). The Mourning Family: Diagnosis and Systemic Intervention in Dysfunctional Family Grief. In: Pereira, R., Linares, J. (eds) Clinical Interventions in Systemic Couple and Family Therapy. European Family Therapy Association Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78521-9_15
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