|
| |
LOSS OF A MOTHER.
Term Paper ID:29012
|
|
|
Essay Subject:
Examines loss felt by a daughter upon the death of her mother.... More...
|
12 Pages / 2700 Words
10 sources, 20 Citations,
APA Format
$48.00
Return to List of Papers
|
Paper Abstract:
Examines loss felt by a daughter upon the death of her mother. Perspective of mother/daughter bonding. Identifies key themes. Psychological impact of loss and attachment. Variables such as attachment to mother, mourning process, emotional support from father, suddenness of the mother's death, quality of the mother/daughter relationship. Process of grief and healing. Discusses studies on the subject, and results of a personal interview.
Paper Introduction:
Abstract
The bulk of the literature on bereavement tends to focus on specific methods in which the bereaved work through the myriad effects of loss. This literature also highlights the fact that the closer the bond between the deceased and the bereaved (mother and daughter being the focus of this study), the more difficult, painful, and drawn-out the “grief work” process may be. More specifically, it appears that the age of the daughter at the time of the maternal loss is an important influence on subsequent coping and reintegration; younger females who lose their mothers are more likely than older females to experience long-lasting psychological and psychosocial ill-effects. Furthermore, the quality of the mother/daughter relationship itself is a significant determinant of how well (or poorly) a daughter will cope with her
Text of the Paper:
The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper.
Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: TheSciences and Engineering, 59(6-B), 3 54. Finally, it would appear thatother variables - suddenness of the mother's death, support of father,existence of support networks, and daughter's own psychological copingskills - play an important role in determining how effective the daughter'sgrief work will be and the duration (as well as the severity) ofbereavement symptomology. Sherrod (2 ) was physicallypresent at her mother's death and states that while she recognized that hermother (who had suffered from a long and extremely painful illness) wasfinally at peace, she and her siblings were left with a sense of permanentbereavement and even of anger. and Zabin, J.L. First, it seems that the age of the daughter at the time of thematernal loss is an important influence on subsequent coping andreintegration; younger females who lose their mothers are more likely thanolder females to experience long-lasting psychological and psychosocial ill-effects. It is Sherrod's (2 ) view that one ofthe critical variables which directly impacts upon how a daughter willexperience the loss of a mother relates to the way in which the motherherself conducts her own "grief work" or process of dying. Moreover, the ability of the dying orterminally ill mother to manage her own grief work effectively caninfluence the ways in which a female offspring will cope with the trauma.In addition, it would appear that other variables - suddenness of themother's death, support of father, existence of support networks, anddaughter's own psychological coping skills - play an important role indetermining how effective the daughter's grief work will be and theduration (as well as the severity) of bereavement. However, no relationship was found between the degree of emotionalattachment a woman currently had with her mother (or prior to the loss ofthe mother) and either depression or parenting stress. Perhaps due to the tension centered on thehospitalized middle child, Ellen's mother began to drink heavily and wasunable to be left alone with the one year-old child. No significantrelationship was found between the presence of a surrogate female rolemodel, the quality of one's relationship with the surviving parent, orparticipation in mourning rituals, and depression or parenting stressduring the transition to parenthood. Lifelong legacy of earlymaternal loss: A women's group. Clinical Social WorkJournal, 28(2), 183-196. Over the course of theirrelationship, Ellen reported that she and her mother had experiencedperiods of great intimacy and periods of equally great estrangement. (2 ). Mother-loss: Recreating relationship and meaning. More specifically, it appears that the age of the daughter at thetime of the maternal loss is an important influence on subsequent copingand reintegration; younger females who lose their mothers are more likelythan older females to experience long-lasting psychological andpsychosocial ill-effects. When her mother dies: An adult daughter'sdepth perspective. Personal Interview As part of the research conducted to complete this study, aninterview with a middle-aged woman who experienced the loss of her motherwas completed. Using a sample of 4 first-time mothers betweenthe ages of 23 and 29, the author identified 2 women who had lost theirown mothers between the ages of six and twelve. An interesting study was conducted by Douglass (1998) in which ahermeneutic and heuristic methodology was employed to explore "Motherloss"within the archetypal construct of the "Motherline." The Motherline isa perspective of female lineage said to transcend the finality of death andto offer women the felt sense of continuity and interrelatedness with allof life.From this perspective, how a daughter (regardless of her own age)experiences the loss of the mother is important, for contained within themystery of the mother's death are the seeds of meaning for the renewal ofher life. She stated that even though her mother's finalillness was prolonged and provided Gray with an opportunity to begin theprocess of "grief work" before her mother's actual death, symptoms ofdepression, loss, and anger lingered for months following the actual loss.She further stated that as a daughter, she felt that the weight ofmaintaining family continuity rested almost exclusively on her shouldersand that she was obligated to maintain the memory of her mother and to passthat memory on to future generations. and Wilson, J.P. American Scholar,69(3), 7-11. Sherrod, B. At one point in theinterview, Ellen made reference to the fact that when she was out ofcontact with her mother, "I still knew I could call her or see her at anytime. Clinical Social Work Journal, 25(2), 179-196. The report willalso include a brief interview conducted by the researcher in which arecently bereaved daughter agreed to discuss her own feelings attendantupon the death of her mother. The researcher also found that daughters who had a self-reported positive attachment to their mother grieved more openly than diddaughters who perceived their attachment to be less strong. Adolescent daughters of motherswith breast cancer: Impact and implications. Six months prior to the mother's death, she had visitedEllen and her family to help care for the youngest child while Ellen andthe middle child were in the hospital. Atthat point, she felt the onset of an enormous sense of guilt because herlast contact with her mother had been characterized by enormous anger. A study Wilcox-Rittgers (1997) focused specifically on theimplications of the death of a mother during a daughter's late adolescenceor early adulthood on the psychological development of the daughter.Thirty women, ages 19 to 28, participated in the study. At the time of Ellen's mother's death, Ellen was married and theparent of three children ranging in age from one year-old to sixteen years-old. Gray (2 ) commented on the death of her own mother and her sense ofloss as an adult woman. At the same time, the mother, whowas only 36 at the time of her divorce, was required financially to workfor a living and was also engaged in what Ellen described as "several"romantic relationships which at different times reduced her involvementwith her daughter. Variables including attachment to mother, involvement in the mourningprocess, emotional support from the father, suddenness of the mother'sdeath. Spira, M. (1998). It is the purpose of this report to examine the issue of lossattendant upon the death of a mother from a perspective of mother/daughterbonding. Introduction and Purpose Francine du Plessix Gray (2 ) recently commented on the rapidlyexpanding body of literature describing "grief work" orthe process of mourning by means of which an individual who has lost aloved one comes to terms not only with the loss but with the feelings,emotions, and life changes that the loss evokes.The bulk of the literature on bereavement tends to focus on ways in whichthe bereaved work through the myriad effects of loss and to highlight thefact that the closer the bond between the deceased and the bereaved, themore difficult, painful, and drawn-out the "grief work" process may be. (1997). Of course, that's impossible." Summary and Conclusion For Ellen, the grief work involved in the loss of her mother willundoubtedly continue for many years. (2 ). Douglass (1998) suggests that exploring women's biological,psychological, and soulful movement through this significant lifetransition provides a feminine perspective on the process of grief andhealing. Wilcox-Rittgers, C.A. Ellen stated that adolescence was a particularly difficult period andthat problems with her mother began to emerge during this time frame. Furthermore, the quality of the mother/daughterrelationship itself is a significant determinant of how well (or poorly) adaughter will cope with her loss. Ellen emotionally described the morning, five months after havingsent her mother away (months during which the mother and daughter did notcommunicate with each other) when she received a phone call telling herthat her mother had been found dead of a heart attack in her apartment.Ellen's reaction was initially one of disbelief. Smith (1999) conducted an exploratory, qualitative studyof African-American, middle-aged daughters' responses to the death of theirelderly mothers. It is interesting that Ellen considers herself to be a much moresuccessful mother than her own mother. Their empirical study consistedof a sample of 79 womenaged 17 to 68 who had experienced the deaths of their mothers, often intraumatic ways. However,daughters with a self-reported poor attachment to their mothers were morelikely to experience enduring guilt as well as anger following their loss.This suggests that the quality of the mother/daughter relationship may alsobe a critical determinantof how the loss impacts on the surviving daughter and the duration of thisimpact. In essence, Douglass (1998)asserts that traditional psychoanalytic frameworks are inadequate inexplaining Motherloss or in providing therapeutic assistance to daughterswho experience this loss. (1998). (1997). The Other Side, 36(2), 42-44. Abstract The bulk of the literature on bereavement tends to focus on specificmethods in which the bereaved work through the myriad effects of loss.This literature also highlights the fact that the closer the bond betweenthe deceased and the bereaved (mother and daughter being the focus of thisstudy), the more difficult, painful, and drawn-out the "grief work" processmay be. When I interviewed Ellen, nine years had passed since the death andloss of her mother. Using in-depth, open-ended interviews, 3 African-American women rangingin age from 39 to 68 whose mothers were ages 65 or over were conducted.The results of the study indicate that themes of reciprocity, familycontinuity, and cognitive strategies framing an elderly mother's death asan important loss to family and community are important aspects of copingand life restructuring processes for these women. What was significant, according toMaguire (2 ), is that women who expressed greater symptoms of griefattendant upon the loss of their mother had more symptoms of depression andexperienced greater stress associated with parenting. (1999). The mother, according to Ellen, alternated between periods of highinvolvement in her daughter's school and recreational activities, servingas a Brownie and Girl Scout leader, working as President of the ParentTeacher Association, and hosting regular birthday and holiday parties forher daughter and her daughter's friends. Barbara Sherrod (2 ), a middle-aged woman who recentlylost her own mother, described her response to this loss and said that itwas the most painful experience of her life. The researcher found thatwomen who lost their mothers prior to adolescence experienced moredepressive symptoms and greater levels of stress in parenting than didwomen whose mothers were still alive at the time of their own pregnancies. and Kenemore, E. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 32(2), 41-52. At the time of the interview, Ellenpresented herself and impressed this writer as a mature, competent,professional, and well-integrated woman of middle-age. Sigman, M. The work of mourning. Smith, S.H. Wilcox-Rittgers (1997) concluded, based on an admittedly sample, thatlength of time since the mother's death was a critical variable infacilitating the ability of the bereaved daughter to achieve healthyrelationships. References Dietrich, P.J., McWilliam, C.L., Ralyea, S.F., and Schweitzer, A.T.(1999). She described herfamily life in positive terms,but also made frequent references to her sense that she had unfinishedbusiness with her mother and expressed the hope thatin some type of after-life, this unresolved relationship could befinalized. This single case, coupled with thefindings presented in the review of literature, affirms the belief thatthere are any number of critically important variables which directlyimpact on how daughters cope with or respond to the loss of their mother.It is also clear that these responses are enormously influenced by thenature of the mother/daughter bond itself, the suddenness of the loss, andthe ways in which the dying parent approaches death. This brief review of some of the literature on the ways in whichmaternal loss impacts upon surviving daughters tends to highlight severalissues. Before the middle child was released from the hospitalEllen and her husband sent her mother back to her home and made alternativearrangements for the care of the youngestchild. Memories of the mother/daughterrelationship were explored while the meanings the daughters attached totheir loss were described in written narratives, a pair of in-depthinterviews, and one group session. Now that mom is in the Lord's arms, I just haveto live the way she taught me: Reflections on an elderly, African-Americanmother's death. Results of the study indicated that attachment to themother was strongly and positively related to the quality of currentrelationships and to various aspects of the grief experience. In a study of adolescent daughters of mothers diagnosed with breastcancer, Spira and Kenemore (2 ) reported that adolescent females ages 12to 19 undergo extreme anxiety about changes in family roles attendant uponthe impending loss of their mother, but are more concerned about theeffects of the loss of the mother/daughter relationship. (2 ). In going through hermother's possessions, she found several gift-wrapped Christmas presentsthat were labeled for Ellen, her husband, and each of Ellen's children. Now, since her death, I find that there are things both good and badthat I want and need to say to her. Onat least two occasions during Ellen's twenties and thirties, she and hermother were out of contact for periods of up to three years. Douglass, M.E.C. Pill, C.J. Twelve of thesubjects had lost their mothers while 18 had mothers who were still living. Dissertation Abstracts International: SectionB: The Sciences and Engineering, 61(1-B), 539. Secondly, the quality of the mother/daughter relationship itselfis a significant determinant of how well (or poorly) a daughter will copewith her loss. A mother's death. Mother and daughter lived in American citiesseparated by a distance of some 8 miles. Review of the Literature Sigman and Wilson (1998) explored the psychological impact of lossand attachment among motherless daughters. A standardized instrument measured grief, bereavement,post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychiatric symptoms, and an overallsense of well-being. This perspective is further rooted in the feminine nature of theorganic and regenerative processes of life. Dietrich, McWilliam, Ralyea, and Schweitzer (1999) investigated adultwomen's experiences in losing their mother. Because the mother/daughter relationship wasunresolved at the time of the mother's sudden and unexpected death, Ellensensed that she would never be fully able to obtain closure or to move onwith her own life. In considering some of the comments that Ellen made and connectingthose comments to the literature reviewed above, what emerges is therealization that it is the quality of the mother/daughter bond andrelationship which may well be most significant how the surviving daughtercopes with the loss of her mother. Third, the ability of the dying or terminally ill mother tomanage her own grief work effectively can influence the ways in which afemale offspring will cope with the trauma. As she told thisresearcher, "I couldn't believe that my mother died without my knowing it." For Ellen, there was no sense of closure, even after she flew to hermother's home to take care of funeral arrangements. The visit, which was the lastphysical meeting of the mother and the daughter, was described by Ellen asa "complete disaster." The mother was then in her late sixties and was struggling to controlher own alcoholism (a factor largely responsible for previous periods ofestrangement between the two. It is important torecognize that while some broad generalizations on this issue can be made,each situation should be understood as unique and that no two daughtersexperience the loss of their mother in quite the same manner. (2 ). In describing her own responses to her mother's impending death,Sherrod (2 ) reported feelings of denial, and the determination to rejectthe imminence of that death by holding on to her mother's physicalpresence. Gray, F.D.P. Maternal death in lateadolescence/early adulthood and psychological development in women.Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences andEngineering, 58(5-B), 27 6. Suchvariables as emotional support from the surviving parent, ability to mournfrequently and publicly, the length of time since the maternal death, andthe suddenness of the mother's death were positively related to variousaspects of the grief experience. Traumatic bereavement:Posttraumatic stress disorder and prolonged grief in motherless daughters.Journal of Psychological Practice, 4(1), 34-5 . Specifically Sigman and Wilson (1998) concluded that both thestrength of the mother/daughter bond (measured as the survivors' perceivedpositive attachment to the mother) and the age of the survivor at the timeof the mother's death were most likely to affect post-loss symptomology.Younger daughters were found to be more vulnerable to these effects thanolder women, but older women reporting a strong bonding with their mothersalso experienced pain and suffering that endured for a significant periodof time following the loss. The woman, known herein as "Ellen," was 43 years-old at thetime of her mother's death. Maguire (2 ) elected to complete a doctoral dissertationfocused on the impact of childhood maternal loss on the transition of thesurvivor to motherhood. The impact of childhood maternal loss on thetransition to motherhood. The results of the study indicated that there wereprolonged effects associated with bereavement, including PTSD symptoms,depression, somatization, and preoccupation with memories of the deceased.The authors also found that depending on the age of the daughter at thetime of the loss, individuals experienced adverse psychosocial effects topersonal identity and sexual behavior. The middle child, a male, had required extensive surgeries to correcta birth defect. This writer also notes that she had for some time been in denialabout the exact nature of the relationship she and her mother had createdover time, constructing artificial memories of a consistently positive andmutually appreciative relationship that did not in actuality exist.Sherrod (2 ) further commented that in the weeks before her mother died,the older woman lashed out at each of her daughters and reminded them ofpast relationship failures and difficulties - increasing the daughters'sense of anger and frustration. Themother was extremely possessive and also highly critical of Ellen's grades,social life, college plans, and eventual work and relationship choices. Others have argued that the loss of aparent and particularly the loss of a mother, is especially traumatic to adaughter for whom the bond with a mother is one of the strongest of allintimate relationships (Pill & Zabin, 1997). They used an interpretativepsychological frame of inquiry and employed a sample of 5 women who agreedto share their loss experience. Ellen suggested to me that she had "come to terms"with the fact that her mother was dead, but that she still felt angry,betrayed, and incomplete. Ellen admits tohaving been extremely angry and to have felt betrayed by her mother becauseof this problem. These are the key themes found in the literatureon this topic. It is this aspect of a daughter'sloss which may be most difficult and most challenging. Particular attention was given by the researcher to thecoping strategies described by daughters during the bereavement experience. Maguire, N.B. Additionally, theresearch revealed that the age of the daughter at the time of loss and theage of the mother at the time of her death were critical variablesimpacting on thecoping process. As ayoung child, Ellen's parents were divorced and she lived entirely with hermother. CanadianJournal of Nursing Research, 31(2), 77-1 1. The published professional literature will be explored toidentify key themes with respect to how such a loss impacts upon thesurviving daughter and how survivors cope with this loss. Time since the mother's death, and multiple loss were examinedusing the Attachment Scale of the Relationship Withthe Mother Inventory, and the Mourning Behavioral Checklist, the GriefExperience Interview, and the Mutual Psychological DevelopmentQuestionnaire. Granted that Ellen and her mother had along-established pattern of relational difficulties, for Ellen, thesuddenness of her mother's death was quite disturbing. They asserted that trauma andbereavement are interrelated phenomenon which intersect when a mother'sdeath is sudden and traumatic in nature. The researchers found that the loss ofone's mother represents the loss of an individual's first intimaterelationship - a relationship with a unique meaning for daughters becausetheir personal development is profoundly and uniquely shaped by thiscritical relationship.Women who lose their mothers appear to feel a stronger sense of isolationand loss than do women who lose their fathers, suggesting that the intimacyof a gender-based parent-child relationship may be a critical variable indetermining post-lossreaction.
If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again:
or
Click here to request an essay written just for you.
|
|
|
