Recovery Following Bereavement: An Examination of the Concept

Herman Feifel noted that appropriate attention to one's mourning and grieving allowed the dead to die and the bereaved "to redefine and reintegrate oneself into life" (H. Feifel, 1977, p. 9). The author takes this central focus on bereavement outcomes as the springboard for an examination of the concept recovery following bereavement. He examines the meanings of the terms recover and bereavement and considers the centrality of concepts from life span human development, the life crisis literature, and existential phenomenology for defining the full possibilities of the concept of recovery following bereavement. Seminal ideas from Alexander Leighton and Thomas Attig are examined for their power to provide operational definitions for Feifel's idea about redefining and reintegrating oneself into life as the full meaning of the concept recovery following bereavement.