Whose Recovery, of What? Relationships and Environments Promoting Grief and Growth

This article explores the concept of recovery in the wake of a loved one's death, using a cultural and developmental systems approach to understanding child, adult, and family bereavement outcomes as evolving, interdependent adaptive responses to changed circumstances of development within highly specific contexts in intergenerational time and cultural space. An integrative life span perspective on developmental psychopathology and resilience emphasizes the multi-dimensional nature of grief responses and their interweaving with ongoing and new interdependent adaptive strategies designed to accomplish specific, evolving tasks of shared life cycle development. This approach redefines bereavement "symptoms" as problematic when they interfere with negotiation of next steps in interdependent development within realistic ecologies and available resources in cultural contexts. The article uses clinical examples of interventions after a loved one's death from a chronic illness to illustrate how interventions can help identify critical developmental systems and leverage points supporting positive development and giving priority to the bereaved's own goals for grief and growth. This intervention model emphasizes patient-centered perspectives, conducts an ethical inquiry about consequences of adaptive strategies for all family members, and constructs collaborations between care providers and families.