Understandings of death among bereaved individuals: A lexical Analysis

Grief following the death of a loved one involves complex meaning-making processes shaped by individual, cultural, and spiritual factors. This descriptive, exploratory study employed lexicometric analysis with theoretically-grounded qualitative interpretation to examine the subjective understandings of death reported by 167 bereaved adults during screening for online group psychotherapy. Using IRaMuTeQ software, three lexical analyses were performed: Word Cloud, Similarity Analysis, and Descending Hierarchical Classification. Results revealed four main axes of meaning: (1) naturalization of death as an inevitable life process; (2) a teleological perspective in which death signifies the completion of a life purpose; (3) death as a spiritual transition to another plane of existence; and (4) death as a source of fear, pain, and existential incomprehension. Findings indicate that understandings of finitude are multidimensional, encompassing cognitive, affective, spiritual, and relational dimensions, with potential relevance for clinical practice in bereavement psychotherapy.