Abnormal (Complicated or Unresolved) Grief
Grief extending over a long period of time without resolution.
Acute Grief
The intense physical and emotional expression of grief occurring as the awareness increases of a loss of someone or something significant.
Adaptation
The individual's ability to adjust to the psychological and emotional changes brought on by a stressful event such as the death of a significant other.
Affect
Feelings and their expression.
Aftercare or Post-Funeral Counseling
Those appropriate and helpful acts of counseling that come after the funeral.
AIDS
Acquired immune Deficiency Syndrome
Aggression
The intentional infliction of physical or psychological harm on another.
Alarm
Fear or anxiety caused by the sudden realization of danger.
Alienation
The state of estrangement an individual feels in social settings that are viewed as foreign, unpredictable or unacceptable.
Alternatives
A choice of services and merchandise available as families make a selection and complete funeral arrangements; formulating different actions in adjusting to a crisis.
Anger
Blame directed toward another person.
Anomic Grief
A term to describe the experience of grief, especially in young bereaved parents, where mourning customs are unclear due to an inappropriate death and the absence of prior bereavement experience; typical in a society that has attempted to minimize the imp
Anticipatory Grief
A syndrome characterized by the presence of grief in anticipation of death or loss; the actual death comes as a confirmation of knowledge of a life-limiting condition.
Anxiety
A state of tension, typically characterized by rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath; an emotion characterized by a vague fear or premonition that something undesirable is going to happen.
At-Need Counseling
A death has occurred and the funeral director is counseling with the family as they select the services and items of merchandise in completing arrangements for the funeral service of their choice.
Attachment Theory (by Bowlby)
The tendency in human beings to make strong affectionate bonds with others coming from the need for security and safety.
Attending or Listening
Giving undivided attention by means of verbal and non-verbal behavior.
Attitude
A learned tendency to respond to people, objects, or institutions in a positive or negative way.
Bereavement
The act or event of separation or loss that results in the experience of grief.
Chronic Grief
Excessive in duration and never comes to satisfactory conclusion.
Client-Centered Counseling or Person-Centered
A phrase coined by Carl Rogers to refer to that type of counseling where one comes actively and voluntarily to gain help on a problem, but without any notion of surrendering his own responsibility for the situation; a non-directive method of counseling wh
Cognitive
From the Latin word, "to know", the study of the origins and consequences of thoughts, memories, beliefs, perceptions, explanations, and other mental processes.
Committal Service
The rite of finality in a funeral service preceding cremation, earth burial, entombment, or burial at sea.
Communication
A general term for the exchange of information, feelings, thoughts, and acts between two or more people, including both verbal and non-verbal aspects of this interchange.
Complicated (Unresolved or Chronic) Grief
Grief extending over a long period of time without resolve.
Congruence
According to client-centered counseling, the necessary quality of a counselor being in touch with reality and with others' perception of one's self.
Coping
Characteristic ways of responding to stress.
Counselee
The individual seeking assistance or guidance.
Counseling
Advice, especially that given as a result of consultation (by Webster). Any time someone helps someone else with a problem (by Jackson). Good communication within and between people (by Rogers). A therapeutic experience for reasonably healthy persons (by
Counselor
The individual providing assistance and guidance.
Crisis
A highly emotional temporary state in which an individual's feelings of anxiety, grief, confusion, or pain impair his or her ability to act.
Crisis Counseling
Interventions for a highly emotional, temporary state in which individuals overcome by feelings of anxiety, grief, confusion, or pain are unable to act in a realistic normal manner.
Death Anxiety
A learned emotional response to death-related phenomena which is characterized by extreme apprehension.
Delayed Grief (by Worden)
Inhibited, suppressed, or postponed response to a loss.
Denial
The defense mechanism by which a person is unable or refuses to see things as they are because such facts are threatening to the self.
Directive Counseling
Counselor takes a live speaking role, asking questions, suggesting course of action, etc.
Discrimination
Treating members of various social groups differently in circumstances where their rights or treatment should be identical.
Displaced Aggression
A defense mechanism in which anger is redirected toward a person or object other than the one who provided the anger originally.
Displacement
Redirection of emotion to other targets.
Dyad
Two units regarded as a pair; husband and wife.
Ego Defense Mechanisms
Unconscious, irrational means used by the ego to defend against anxiety.
Emotion
The outward expression of mood or feelings.
Emotions
Feelings such as happiness, anger, or grief, created by brain patterns accompanied by bodily changes.
Empathy (by Wolfelt)
The ability to enter into and share the feelings of others.
Emotional Expression
The outward expression of mood or feeling states.
Euthanasia or Right-To-Die
An act of allowing the death of persons suffering from a life-limiting condition.
Exaggerated Grief (by Worden)
persons are usually conscious of the relationship of the reaction to the death, but the reaction to the current experience is excessive and disabling.
Facilitate
To assist understanding of the circumstances of situations an individual is experiencing, and to assist that person in the selection of an alternative adjustment if necessary.
Fear
Strong emotion marked by such reactions as alarm, dread, and disquiet.
Focusing
Centering a client's thinking and feelings on the situation causing a problem and assisting the person in choosing the behavior to solve the problem.
Frustration
The state of being prevented from attaining a purpose; thwarted; the blocking of satisfaction by some kind of obstacle.
Funeral Rite
An organized, flexible, purposeful, group-centered, time-limited response to death which reflects revenue, dignity, and respect.
Funeral Service Psychology
The study of human behavior as related to funeral service.
Genuineness (by Wolfelt)
The ability to present one's self sincerely.
Goals
Adjustment, motivation in nature, to be achieved.
Grief
An emotion or set of emotions due to a loss.
Grief Counseling
Helping people facilitate uncomplicated grief to a healthy completion of the tasks of grieving within a reasonable time frame.
Grief Syndrome (by Lindemann)
A set of symptoms associated with loss.
Grief Therapy (by Worden)
Specialized techniques which are used to help people with complicated grief reactions.
Griefwork (by Lindemann)
A process occurring with loss, aimed at loosening the attachment to the dead for reinvestment in the living.
Guidance
Support or support system provided to the counselee who is seeking an alternative adjustment to problems.
Guilt
Blame directed toward one's self based on real or unreal conditions.
Homicide
The killing of one human being by another.
Hospice
Historically an inn for travelers, especially one kept by a religious order; also used to indicate a concept designed to treat patients with a life-limiting condition.
Illustrating
Detailed examples of adjustments, choices or alternatives available to the client or counselee from which a course of action may be selected.
Informational Counseling
Counseling in which a counselor shares a body of special information with a counselee.
Interpersonal Attraction
Social attraction to another person.
Living Will
A document which governs the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from an individual in the event of an incurable condition that will cause death with in a relatively short time, and which such person is no longer able to make decisions
Masked Grief (by Worden)
Occurs when persons experience symptoms and behaviors which cause them difficulty, but do not see or recognize the fact that these are related to the loss.
Mitigation
Any event, person, or object that lessens the degree of pain in grief.
Motivation
The process that initiates, directs, and sustains behavior satisfying physiological or psychological needs.
Mourning
An adjustment process that involves grief or sorrow over a period of time and helps in the reorganization of the life of an individual following a loss or death of someone loved.
Non-Verbal Communication
That which is expressed by posture, facial expression, actions, or physical behavior; that which is communicated by any means except verbally.
Option
Choice of actions provided through counseling as a means of solving the counselee's dilemma.
Panic
A strong emotion characterized by sudden and extreme fear.
Paraphrasing
Expressing a thought of idea in an alternate and sometimes a shortened form.
Personality
A relatively stable system of determining tendencies within an individual.
Person Centered (Client Centered) Counseling
A phrase coined by Carl Rogers to refer to that type of counseling where one comes actively and voluntarily to gain help on problem, but without any notion of surrendering his own responsibility for the situation.
Persuasion
A deliberate attempt to change attitudes of belief with information and arguments.
Positive Regard
According to Carl Rogers, accepting the client or counselee as he/she is, without imposing judgement or stipulations.
Post-Funeral Counseling or Aftercare
Those appropriate and helpful acts of counseling that come after the funeral.
Prejudice
Negative attitude towards others based of their gender, religion, race, or membership in a particular group.
Pre-Need Counseling
That counseling which occurs before death.
Projection
Attribution of one's unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or behaviors to someone else.
Psychiatrist
A medical doctor with a specialty in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.
Psychology
The study of human behavior.
Psychotherapy (by Jackson)
Intervention with people whose needs are so specific that usually they can only be met by specifically trained physicians or psychologists; often work with the deep consciousness.
Rapport
A relation, conformity, accord, or affinity established in any human interaction.
Rationalization
Supplying a logical, socially acceptable reason rather than the real reason for an action.
Regression
A defense mechanism used in grief to return to more familiar and often more primitive modes of coping.
Repression
Blocking of threatening material from consciousness.
Resistance
An adaptive maneuver characterized by an inability or unwillingness to act with the aim of asserting or sustaining individual control.
Respect (by Wolfelt)
The ability to communicate the belief that everyone possesses the capacity and right to choose alternatives and make decisions.
Restitution
A compelling need by which the individual attempts to restore inner psychological equilibrium, uniting past, present, and future in the cycle from loss and the fear of loss to acceptance.
Ritual
Any act that is charged with symbolic content.
Searching
Preoccupied and intense thoughts about the deceased.
Shame
The assumption of blame directed toward one's self by others.
Shock
The reaction of the body to an event; often experienced emotionally as a sudden, violent, and upsetting disturbance.
Situational Counseling
Related to specific situations in life that may create crises and produce human pain and suffering; type of counseling that adds another dimension to the giving of information, in that it deals with significant feelings that are produced by life crises.
Social Comparison
Making judgments about ourselves through comparison with others.
Social Facilitation
A phenomenon that occurs when an individual's performance improved because of the presence of others.
Stress
Life events and minor hassles that exert pressure or strain.
Stressor
Any event capable of producing physical or emotional stress.
Sublimation
Redirection of emotion to culturally or socially useful purposes.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, SIDS, or Crib Death
The sudden and unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant which remains unexplained after complete autopsy and a review of the circumstances around the death.
Suicide
A deliberate act of killing oneself.
Suicidal Gesture
An unsuccessful attempt made by a person to end his/her own life.
Suicidal Ideation
Thoughts of ending one's life.
Summary
A brief review of points covered in a portion of the counseling session.
Suppression
A more or less conscious postponement of addressing anxieties and concerns.
Survivor Guilt
Guilt felt by family and friends after a death.
Sympathy
Sincere feelings for the person who is trying to adjust to a serious loss.
Thanatology
The study of death.
Thanatophobia
An irrational, exaggerated fear of death.
Threat
A statement or action which creates anxiety in an individual's life.
Verbal Communication
Spoken, oral communication.
Warmth and Caring (by Wolfelt)
The ability to be considerate and friendly as demonstrated by both verbal and non-verbal communication.