In these times we uses descriptions of bereavement to include uncomplicated bereavement and complicated bereavement. Uncomplicated bereavement follows predictable patterns and outcomes. Complicated bereavement has its own peculiarities and becomes complex for those suffering from complicated bereavement.

Complicated Mourning

In this case grief continues for a long period of times and becomes a major part of daily life. Mourners remain withdrawn from others; mourners believe their deceased loved one somehow remains in their presence, which hampers their own growth and recovery.

Often times we find complicated mourning accompanies those unexpected deaths we could never imagine. A mother going out for a gallon of milk in the evening fails to return. A waiting father and children then learn their mother died in an armed robbery while she bought milk; a son fails to answer his telephone only to be discovered dead from suicide. In these cases complicated mourning may develop as bereavement becomes a psychological impediment to daily activities -- getting on with life. Of course death of a child and accidental deaths create terrible emotional outcomes for a believed family.

We've learned that what's normal for one person in mourning may not be at all "normal" for another. We've learned that simple bereavement rarely lasts less than a month. Complicated mourning may show similarities to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This would fit the condition of a parent following the loss of a child.

Death-Related Stressors

Cause of death and death's vicitim contribute to stress and type of stress. A child's unanticipated death creates stressors unlike those suffered by an elder son's loss of an elder father to a long fight with cancer.

Type of death almost always influences mourners' experience. An accidental death leading to a child's unexpected death produces stressors related to surviving parents' experience with a child's death. A parent losing a child in a swimming pool accident carries a set of stressors depending upon whether or not parents were present; a child killed in a stroller its mother placed on a street corner curb too close the street experiences another type of stressor when this type of sudden, avoidable death arises from buses or trucks passing over corner curbs.

In an absent parent's role in a child's swimming death, a great many "ifs" play out as they begin debriefing their part in their child's death. Of course, If a parent has a presence during a child's swimming death, a field for blame, guilt, and deep self-inposed sorrow follows. There's simply no way out for a young mother in control of a child's stroler when ran over on a street corner. Most likely a form of complicated gried developes.

In this last example a mourning mother may develop volatile anger toward the driver, which provides some relief from self-blane.

Horrific deaths lead to complicated mourning more often than uncomplicated mourning.