Understanding Bereaved Parents and Siblings: A Handbook for Professionals, Family, and Friends

by Cathy McQuaid

Overview

Understanding Bereaved Parents and Siblings is based on lived experiences and provides insight, ideas, and inspiration on how to support the bereaved, how to talk to them about their experience, and how to help people manage their own shock or grief.

Part I of the book contains ten stories from parents and six from siblings sharing their experiences. Each narrator discusses their relationship with the person who died; what led up to the death; the impact of the loss on the speaker; as well as what helped and what hindered them in their grief. Part II is aimed at professionals and draws on various topics such as grief and bereavement models, transgenerational loss, resilience, protection, and creative ways of working with grief.

The book will be an essential read for the bereaved and the professionals, family, and friends who are supporting them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367702960
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/11/2021
Pages:	298
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Cathy McQuaid is a bereaved mother. She is also a researcher, psychotherapy supervisor, and trainer. She decided to use her skills to undertake a research project to help her understand her own grief and the responses and behaviours of those around her. This book is the outcome of that research.

Table of Contents

List of Figures/Tables xi

Foreword xii

Acknowledgements xiii

Introduction 1

Part I 7

1 We are forever changed by this experience 9

2 "Stillbirth is such a taboo subject": Claire's story remembering her daughter Emilie 17

3 "How many children do you have? It's just something I hate"; John's story remembering his daughter Emilie 28

4 "There was this crowd of women all wailing": Elisa's story remembering her daughter Ellen 40

5 "Nobody foresaw that she would die so quickly": Joanne's story remembering her daughter Rebecca 54

6 "Goodbye, have a good evening, take care": Julia's story remembering her daughter Pippa 67

7 "I'm sorry to say he's dead": Steffy's story remembering her son Jason and her brother Matthew 80

8 "They laughed at me and said, you've got to be joking": Nancy's story remembering her daughter Angel 92

9 "I think I was in shock for a year": Carol's story remembering her son David 99

10 "Tell mum not to worry. I'm going to the pure land": Susan's story remembering her son Michael 113

11 "What more could we have done?": Wilf and Kath's story remembering their son Michael 120

12 "Her horror penetrated me": John's story remembering his brother Jamie 130

13 "They're just living in their lovely little bubble and my bubble burst": Rose's story remembering her older sister Lizzie 138

14 "Everything was coming together for him": Shireen's story remembering her brother Tariq 148

15 "Don't judge my life on the chapter that you came in on": Beth's story remembering her brother Jim 156

16 "Jacky was my most significant security base": Edward's story remembering his brother Jacky 169

17 "I think you have a sister": Sally's story remembering her sister Rose 180

18 The ABC of grief 185

Aftermath 185

Bonds 187

Rupture and reconnecting bonds 187

Hostage bonds 189

Challenging existing bonds 190

Continuing bonds and developing resilience 191

Compassion 192

19 Living with loss 193

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs 193

Self-care 198

Anniversaries 199

Acceptance 200

20 Transformational loss 203

1 A disorienting dilemma 203

2 Self-examination with feelings of guilt or shame 204

3 A critical assessment of epistemic, socio-cultural, or psychic assumptions 205

4 Recognition that one's discontent ana the process of transformation are shared and that others have negotiated a similar change 206

5 Exploration of options for new roles, relationships, and actions 207

6 Planning of a course of action 207

7 Acquisition of knowledge and skills for implementing ones plans 208

8 Provisional trying of new roles 208

9 Building of competence and self-confidence in new roles and relationships 209

10 A reintegration into one's life on the basis of conditions dictated by one's new perspective 209

Part II 213

21 Models of grief and bereavement 215

Staged models 215

Visual models 216

Task models 218

Meaning making 223

22 Transgenerational loss and Family Constellations 228

Transgenerational trauma and epigenetics 228

Systemic Family Constellations and the Orders of Love 229

Other options 231

23 Resilience, grief, and grief disorder 234

What is resilience? 234

Factors that affect resilience 234

Measuring resilience 235

The physiological impact of grief 236

When does normal grief turn into a disorder? 237

Medication or therapy 239

Assessment tools 240

24 Protection and self-knowledge 245

Protection 245

Boundanes 245

The Drama Triangle 246

The Awareness ARENA 248

Assertiveness 250

Self-care 251

Compassion and compassion fatigue 253

Identifying personal processes 254

Attunement 256

25 Creative ways of working with loss 258

ATTEND 258

Creative techniques 260

Mindfulness 264

The CIRCLE of compassion 265

Appendix 1 Questions and activities 268

Appendix 2 Sources of help and support 273

Index 278

Editorial Reviews

'Grief can be shattering, immobilising and erode a sense of self and the profound impact on parents and siblings can be long-term; we know this. However, it can also provide an immeasurable opportunity for reflection, insight and change. As such, while grief can last a lifetime, it can also be a transformational experience. Cathy McQuaid, in this superbly written text - that skilfully manoeuvres between moving insight and academic authority - provides us all with a new narrative of grief, which has the opportunity to change and shape our future understanding.'

Dr Andrew Reeves, Associate Professor in the Counselling Professions and Mental Health, and BACP Senior Accredited Counsellor/Psychotherapist

'A well-researched, sensitively written and diverse account of the phenomenology of the death of a child/sibling, a taboo subject. It's uniqueness rests in the detailed, highly varied, personal accounts of loss. The author makes a highly significant contribution towards the lifting of this taboo.

This book will interest anyone in the fields of mental-health, general practice, social work, nursing, paediatrics, bereavement/social studies. It will also be valued by bereaved parents/siblings. All these groups will read moving stories of forms of resilience in the most challenging of experiences.'

Robin Hobbes, UKCP Registered TA Psychotherapist, Co-Founder of Elan and EATA Ethical Advisor

'In writing from her heart, Cathy McQuaid shares with the reader her personal loss, which led to research, as an anchor in her unmoored world. This moving and profoundly sensitive book is grounded in unfolding stories of the experiences of others as ways to make sense of these events, courageously giving voice about their loss.

This unique book offers a three-fold reader interest: for parents and siblings experiencing similar tragedies, for professionals and students to enhance their learning and for family members and friends of bereaved parents and siblings, weaving a delicately framed tapestry of help to support the bereaved.'

Dr Kathy Raffles, FBACP, FNCP, Counsellor, Supervisor, and Trainer

'Dr Cathy McQuaid has written a most comprehensive book with many coping strategies and many ways to best remember our loved ones. I know you will gain strength from reading her book.'

Gloria Hunniford, OBE

From the Publisher