An interpretative phenomenological analysis of anticipatory grief: getting stuck between the problems of the present and the future

Download

index.pdf

Date

2019

Author

Ünal, Eli

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

530
views

222
downloads

Theories of grief primarily focus on post-loss experiences. However, contrary to widespread belief, a similar intensity of grief can be initiated by the expectation of a loss as much as the loss itself. The term anticipatory grief has been used to describe this phenomenon. Anticipatory grief involves cognitive, affective, social, and cultural reactions to the expected death, and ways of coping with these reactions. The primary purpose of this thesis was to investigate the anticipatory grief experiences of adult children whose parents were diagnosed with a terminal illness. The focus of the study is on gaining an in-depth understanding of these individuals’ experiences. Hence, a qualitative research strategy was preferred in order to understand both the subjective experiences and culture-specific dynamics related to anticipatory grief. Purposive sampling resulted in five female, young adult children of terminally-ill cancer patients. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with each of the five participants, and these interviews were analyzed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. According to the results of analysis, seven themes were formed, namely ‘death as the loss of the relationship’, ‘focusing on the present rather than thinking about the post-lost period’, ‘sacrificing self for the sake of the health of parent’, ‘symptoms as signs of repressed emotion’, ‘search for meaning out of the impending death’, ‘growth out of suffering’, and ‘need for support from others’. The results of the current study were discussed in the light of the associated literature, and clinical implications driven from these results were stated..

Subject Keywords

Anticipatory grief, Anticipatory Grief, Grief, Terminal Cancer, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12623417/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/43688

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

An integrative explanation of action Benı, Majıd Davoody (Elsevier BV, 2020-12-01) The Predictive Processing Theory (PP) and its foundational Free Energy Principle (FEP) provide a unifying theoretical groundwork that subsumes theories of perception, cognition, and action. Recently Colin Klein (2018) contends that PP-FEP cannot explain adaptive action with the same force that they deal with perceptions. In his answer to the objection, Clark (2020) points out that FEP explains action, desire and motivation on the basis of minimisation of energy. I argue that this answer begs the question of...
Exploring the Link Between Emotional and Behavioral Dysregulation: A Test of the Emotional Cascade Model Tuna, Ezgi; Bozo Özen, Özlem (Informa UK Limited, 2014-01-01) The emotional cascade model (Selby, Anestis, & Joiner, 2008) posits that the link between emotional and behavioral dysregulation may be through emotional cascades, which are repetitive cycles of rumination and negative affect that result in an intensification of emotional distress. Dysregulated behaviors, such as non-suicidal self-injury, are used to reduce aversive emotions and distract the person from ruminative processes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the emotional cascade model in a no...
The association of self-discrepancy with depression and anxiety: Moderator roles of emotion regulation and resilience Gürcan Yıldırım, Derya; Gençöz, Tülin (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2020-03-23) Self-discrepancy theory posits that people experience emotional vulnerabilities to specific emotions when they have discrepancies between their actual, ideal and ought selves. The purpose of the current study was to test the effect of self-discrepancies (discrepancies between actual self and ideal, ought, and undesired selves) on depression and anxiety in a Turkish population, and to examine the moderator roles of emotion regulation and resilience in the relationship between self-discrepancies and negative ...
An integrative perspective on the interplay between early maladaptive schemas and mental health: The role of self-compassion and emotion regulation Yakın, Duygu; Gençöz, Tülin; Steenbergen, Laura; Arntz, Arnoud (Wiley, 2019-06-01) Objectives We aimed to test whether negative emotion regulation difficulties and self-compassion mediate the relationship between early maladaptive schemas (EMSs) and symptoms of psychopathology and life satisfaction. Methods Data were collected from 296 adults (179 females, 117 males), whose age ranged from 17 to 52 years. The mediating roles of self-compassion and negative emotion regulation were examined via Hayes' procedure (PROCESS) for multiple mediation. Results Negative emotion regulation was the on...
Theoretical Frameworks Methods and Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Studies YÜKSEL ARSLAN, PELİN; Yıldırım, İbrahim Soner (2015-01-01) The main purposes of phenomenological research are to seek reality from individuals’ narratives of their experiences and feelings, and to produce in-depth descriptions of the phenomenon. Phenomenological research studies in educational settings generally embody lived experience, perception, and feelings of participants about a phenomenon. This study aims to provide a general framework for researchers who are interested in phenomenological studies especially in educational setting. Additionally, the study pr...

Citation Formats

E. Ünal, “An interpretative phenomenological analysis of anticipatory grief: getting stuck between the problems of the present and the future,” Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Graduate School of Social Sciences. Psychology, Middle East Technical University, 2019.