Summary Of Grief In This American Life

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In This American Life episode 193: Stories of Loss, Act One: The Disappearance is an excerpt from Genevieve Jurgensen’s book of letters to a friend about how a mother, Genevieve Jurgensen, and her husband, Laurent, deals with unexpected deaths of their two daughters, Elise, and Mathilde. It is evident that the mother and father experience Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief as they cope with the loss of their two daughters due to a car accident. According to Bowlby, grief is a response to the loss or separation from someone the individual knew. In this case, the mother and father grieve as a response to separation from two of their children. Although the mother and father do not fully experience all five stages of grief, they undergo most stages of the process of grief. As a response and redemption from the loss, the mother is at Erikson’s 7th Stage of Development: Generativity and focuses on the future generation by having two more children, Elvire and Gauthier. The first stage of grief is denial, which is usually the first reaction of an individual when the individual hears about a death of a family, friend, acquaintance, or someone close to them. The initial response is usually temporary…show more content…
It is a slow process because the individual is transitioning to have a peace state of mind. This does not mean that the person forgets about the loss and is perfectly okay now. The individual begins to have recovery responses such as remembering anniversary dates or visiting the place of the incident. For instance, Genevieve often still looks back at the place and calls her daughters’ names. She also realizes that April 30 is not only the date Queen Beatrix of Holland rises to the throne but also an anniversary for the deaths of her daughters. It is evident that Genevieve is slowly finding her way to
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