Bereavement Response in Men

Introduction

Bereavement is the period of mourning or state of intense grief mainly following the death of any loved one in the family, friend or society. The facing of multiple and long-term bereavement along with other difficulties leads the person to be at risk of develop negative emotional and psychological health outcome that may affect their physical well-being in some condition (Klass & Steffen, 2017). The bereavement response in men and women is different as research shows the men experiences greater alteration of their mood compared to women and experience more hindered consequences for bereavement on their physical health (Logan, Thornton & Breen, 2018). If you are facing challenges with coping mechanisms, consider seeking psychology dissertation help to navigate through this difficult time effectively. Thus, in this assignment, the bereavement response in men is to be discussed to understand the way grief impact their mentally and physically. Thereafter, the intervention to be used in overcoming bereavement by men is also to be discussed to assist them in ensure better health outcome and well-being by avoiding grief.

Impact of bereavement in men

The men struggle acknowledging their feeling regarding loss or grief (bereavement) and often respond in a way which is not expected in society for expression of grief. It does not indicate the expression are not legitimate or valuable way for processing bereavement, but the style is widely different from normal expression such as crying and mourning as seen in women (Lee et al., 2020). The response regarding bereavement in men is dependent on the nature of person lost and other options. This is because men react in different ways during bereavement regarding loss of family member or friend compared to the loss of partner who is closer to them (Knowles, Ruiz & O'Connor, 2019). In the study by Pitman et al., (2020), it is mentioned that bereavement impacts men to develop increased busyness in life. This is because men value the role of acting as fixers or protectors. The increased grieving often leads people both men and women to feel helpless along with powerless at many times. The men to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of lack of power in life to control their feelings in bereavement intends to become busy with activities so that they can neglect the emotions and source of bereavement.

During bereavement, men when focuses their energy on projects which have concrete financial or physical goals, it makes them feel a sense of satisfaction and purpose in life. Thus, men during bereavement may be seen to involve in large renovation projects, spend long hours at work engaging in physical activity and earning money that assist them in diverting their emotions and feeling powerless in grief (Tshifhumulo & Itsweni, 2018). The action of busyness as mentioned for men as an impact of bereavement is temporary relief from the pain or grief in smaller doses (Bauer & Murray, 2018). However, the study by Hussin & Aho (2020) argued that increased busyness in men during bereavement becomes dangerous as it leads them to develop complete avoidance of vulnerable feeling along with family members. It makes them be at risk of social isolation and loneliness which could further negatively affect their emotional well-being. This is because isolation or loneliness leads individuals unable to share their emotions and makes them be misjudged by others which further hurts their psychological condition to become depressed (McDuffie et al., 2021). The development of busyness as impact of bereavement in men is different from women as they are found to be increasingly mourning the death of lost one and express less interest compared to men in executing activities (McDuffie et al., 2021).

The study by Chen et al., (2020) informs that bereavement is most intricately seen in both gender in reference to loss of a spouse. Thus, the study assessed the impact of bereavement for loss of spouse on the mental health and quality of life of elderly adults. The results gathered informed that bereavement for the loss of spouse is related to increased depression in women (Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) score is 6.881 for women and 5.926 for men) compared to men. In comparison, the study by Förster et al., (2019) mentioned that men while in bereavement for loss of their spouse expressed greater depression compared to women. This is because they feel lack of social companion and assistance in leading their life along with emotional support provided by their spouse. Thus, it cannot be seen that depression is a key mental impact as a result of bereavement in men. However, the intensity of the depression in men compared to women is more cannot be effectively provided as different studies reflected the facts in a different way.

The bereavement response in men includes numbing their emotional and physical pain. This is evident as men during bereavement are seen to mentally compartmentalise their thoughts and avoid discussion or communication regarding the loss of the person with others. They are seen to retreat to an alternative world that involves video gaming, interaction with friends and others to escape from their feelings (Drabwell et al., 2020). As argued by Prigerson et al. (2021), numbing created by men as response to bereavement are to remain in balance with acknowledgment of suffering and offering opportunity to other to feel it. This is because it would otherwise lead the men to show physical tension and isolation that further negatively affects their social and physical life. As asserted by Oaks (2020), men respond to bereavement by showing increased irritability by small annoyances in life. This is because men fail to accept the condition and do not understand the way they are to continue their life without the presence of the dear person they have lost in their life.

The bereavement response in men include showing anger towards the person responsible for the loss of their loved ones as well as for themselves as they have been unable to protect the loved person. The anger in men during bereavement acts as protective and balanced feeling for expressing sadness or loneliness (Philippkowski et al., 2021). During bereavement, men are seen to act with increased anger compared to women as it is found to be culturally supportive where men are allowed to be vulnerable compared to men as it is more socially and culturally acceptable. Thus, it leads the men during bereavement to show increased lashing out on people near to them with hostility or uncontrolled anger on people responsible for death of their loved ones instead of crying or mourning regarding the way they are mentally and emotionally hurt as seen in women (Yamauchi & Hirakawa, 2020). However, such behaviour of men leads them to be misunderstood by other and face pain in relationship along with impart shame for men as they are unable to control their mood which often leads them into further isolation (Stelzer et al., 2019).

During bereavement, men are seen to respond by being increasingly comfortable with attending to changes in life by involving in new roles and responsibilities such as cooking, single parenting, cleaning, shopping and other. They execute the action as way of distraction from the grief regarding the loss of their love ones (Lytje & Dyregrov, 2019). The men consider social relationships to be a place for sharing activities more than emotions. It intends the men during bereavement to involve in actions with the society rather than share their emotions as they already feel knowing the story regarding the death of their loved one and does not wish to retell it. Thus, during bereavement, men are seen to respond by keeping emotions and feeling to themselves as they rely on their own resources to overcome the situation without other’s assistance (Lu et al., 2020). This is different than women as they are found to be more inclined in expressing grief and talking regarding the incidence which the men avoid executing (Azorina et al., 2019).

In bereavement, the men respond by limiting the expression of their emotion as they do not wish to appear weak before society. This is because society expect men to be strong and be comforting to other (Carr & Mooney, 2021). The condition makes them be misinterpreted by others without deep knolwdege regarding the way bereavement responses occur as per gender leading men to face lack of support in coping with the grief (Hwang and Hong, 2021). However, it is to be understood that men are inward thinkers and their lack of emotional response does not lead them to be considered as less responsive to grief and an alternating impact on the situation (Meichsner et al., 2020).

The study by Evans & Abrahamson (2020) mentions that uncontrolled and unexpressed grief in bereavement leads the men to respond by engaging in compensatory behaviour like consumption of alcohol, use of substances and others. This is because it helps men to feel lower amount of negative emotion and assist them in masking their pain or grief which they intend to hide from other. It is evident as chemicals present in alcohol acts in the form of depressants which slowing the activity of the brain and central nervous system making it hard for the person to process thoughts and relive from negative emotions (Brown, 2019). However, substance abuse due to grief in men is seen to cause negative physical outcomes for them which deteriorates their well-being and lower their days of life (Meichsner et al., 2020). Thus, uncontrolled response for bereavement in men may negatively affect them mentally as well as physically due to which active approaches are to be taken to limit the negative outcomes and ensure their good health along with healthy living.

Intervention for managing bereavement impact in men

The intervention to cope impacts of bereavement in men is important to ensure they have better emotional and physical ability to lead their own life and avoid succumbing to be isolated out of the negative feeling of grief. The initial intervention to be made for assisting men during bereavement is creating space and condition for them to feel encouraged to express their feeling to others. It is to be developed by creating a listening attitude towards mourning men and judging them for expressing their emotions (Palmer & Yuen, 2020). This is because effective listening during grief leads the men to avoid being judged and feel free to express them views with the understanding that the listener is trying to perceive their point of view and not forcing their view to influence them (Thomas, Colin-Thomé & Maher, 2020). Thus, effective listening by near ones and friend of men during their bereavement stage helps the men to mourn and avoid hiding their feeling to be unresponsive in hindered way to further feelings and emotions.

The study by Chan & Cheung (2020), highlights that men in the society are found to be self-contained and stoic to outward expression of emotions. In this condition, they are to be involved in grief counselling session compared to be involved with people having only listening attitude. This is because grief counselling is nature of psychotherapy in which the therapist with expert psychological knowledge and use of different strategies leads men as well as women to cope with emotional, physical, cognitive, social and spiritual response to loss (Klasen et al., 2017). The grief counsellors perceive that there are unique ways used by different person according to their life experiences, family background, personality, intrinsic belief and others to grief during bereavement (Rynearson & Sinnema, 2020). Thus, the impact of bereavement for men may not be similar for all and involvement of grief counselling would assist creating exact strategies to be involved for each man to help them cope with grief.

The intervention to avoid negative outcomes of bereavement in men includes supporting them to be active in a controlled way. This indicates that men during their bereavement are to be supported to work to allow them to distract from their feeling but avoided to be over worked as it would create negative impact on their life (Moorhouse & O’Connor, 2021). For example, men facing bereavement due to loss of their child are to be involved in playing football, golf and other recreational sports apart from allowing them to work in their office to help them overcome grief. The other intervention for supporting men during bereavement is allowing them to involve in problem-solving for the issue which leads to the death of their loved one. For instance, men who are grieving due to the loss of their mother or child to cancer are to be allowed to involve in cancer awareness campaigns and fundraising activities. This is because such actions lead the men to feel healing for their grief out of being able to play active part in resolving the issue for others which hindered their life (King et al., 2017).

The society label men as the protectors of the family and they are to typically work for their children and spouses to create warm and good medical care, safe transportation, healthy food and others. The death of loved one in this condition makes the men feel they are responsible for the condition (Roberts, 2020). However, intervention through talking and active support is to be made in this aspect to make the men avoid feeling guilty for the death of their loved ones. They are to be assured through actions and support from others that the death was not their fault and they were effectively responsible for trying to control the condition even though the condition was beyond their ability to manage. This is because it would help to create emotional strength in men to gradually overcome their grief and bereavement (Horstman, Holman & McBride, 2020).

The other intervention for managing grief in men during bereavement is detecting and managing early signs of depression, involvement in substance abuse and deterioration in spousal relationship. This is because they are seen to worsen the condition during bereavement in men making them unable to ever cope from the grief (King et al., 2017). The other intervention is making men in bereavement feel their loss is understood by others and individuals from family and friends are considered regarding their health. This is because it would help to show warmth and love to men along with empathy and compassion required by them to gradually overcome grief (Rynearson & Sinnema, 2020). The other intervention includes making men to be close to nature and involved in activities such as gardening in the natural environment to overcome their grief. This is because being in natural environment lead to create less production of stress hormone in the body and supports greater self-esteem development in people (Rynearson & Sinnema, 2020).

Conclusion

The above discussion mentioned that bereavement response in men are widely different from women as their social perception, personality and other varies in a wider way. The common responses to bereavement seen in men include chronic depression, inappropriate mood changes, physical complaints, hindered spousal relationship and others. Men show anger during their bereavement to hide their feeling of grief. They are seen to blame themselves being incapable of supporting and preventing the death of their loved one. Men are also found to involve in being busy to ignore their grief during bereavement and involve in substance abuse. One of the interventions in managing bereavement responses in men is involving them in grief counselling session. This is because the grief counsellors are educated individuals who understand the way different strategies are to be implemented to systematically make men overcome their grief and bereavement to develop enhanced well-being and health. The other intervention for managing bereavement in men is allowing them to work in controlled manner and involving them in recreational activities to help them cope or forget their grief. Men are to be actively listened and effective communication with them is to be developed during their bereavement phase to support them avoid developing guilty feeling for not being able to control the death of their loved one.

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