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Grief, Bereavement, Mourning: Home

This guide presents research, resources, and information related to the loss of a loved-one or pet. It is a collaboration between Professor of Sociology & Social Work Suzie Welch and Jefferson College Library.

Grief, Bereavement, Mourning

This guide is meant for informational and educational purposes. It is not meant to provide professional advice about individual situations. Please consult your doctor or a mental health professional for specific care and recommendation for your situation. If you or someone you know is in a mental health, suicide, or substance use crisis, help is available. Reach out to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or chatting at https://988lifeline.org/. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a free and confidential service available to everyone.  

Jefferson College Students, if you are struggling or feeling overwhelmed and have considered counseling, please stop by the top floor of the Student Center to schedule an appointment, email counseling@jeffco.edu, or call 636-481-3262 or 636-481-3215. TTY Users dial 711. If you or someone else is in immediate danger of harm to self or others or your situation is an emergency, call 636-481-3500 or 911 immediately!

In addition to the selected resources in this guide, Jefferson College Library has thousands of additional resources, including books, films, and articles. If you would like assistance finding resources, please email refdesk@jeffco.edu, call 636-481-3166 and ask to speak with a librarian, or stop by the front desk at the Library.

Grief Support for Young Adults

Dougy Center  https://www.dougy.org/about has received national and international acclaim for our peer grief support model for helping children cope before and after the death of a family member. The Dougy Center Model has been replicated in over 500 sites throughout the world and is considered a ‘gold standard’ of practice in the field of grief and loss. Their list of tips for helping young people with grief is linked below.

Music & Grief

Music in varying forms has long been a key part of the human rituals and ceremonies which accompany significant events and situations in people’s lives, including religious ceremonies and funerals (Honigsheim, 1989). In Beyond Words: Some Uses of Music in the Funeral Setting, Glenys Caswell explores some of these uses.

The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. Listen to a few of these recordings and explore more on the site. Chopin's funeral march may be a familiar piece to many listeners.

 Omaha Indian Funeral Song: https://www.loc.gov/item/omhbib000457?

 

Grief, Bereavement, Mourning

Video Games & Processing Grief

Video games can help people handle their pain on their own terms -- whether facing it head on or disconnecting from it entirely. Per Jennifer Stavros in Wired Magazine, "games can help a player cope with grief in ways that suit their unique route of processing." A recent study has also shown that playing video games can help the grieving "derive new meanings on both the loss and their post-loss life" by giving them the "agency to actively reconstruct their narrative of loss" and facilitate "the sharing of grief" (Eum and Doh 1). In other words, video games can be helpful tools for not only processing grief, but deriving new understandings about death and figuring out ways to move forward after a difficult loss. 

Some frequently discussed video games for dealing with grief include A Mortician's Tale, Hades, Spiritfarer, What Remains of Edith Finch, and even Animal Crossing -- games don't have to be about death in order to help you process it, they can simply provide social support or a needed escape.  

Works Cited

Eum, Karam & Doh, Young Yim. "A Thematic Analysis of Bereaved Adults' Meaning-making Experience of Loss Through Playing Video Games." Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, 2023, pp. 1-17.

Stavros, Jennifer. "Video Games Are Helping More People Process Death." Wired, 14 March, 2021. https://www.wired.com/story/video-games-death-community/