What Is Mourning?

Humans are social creatures. Throughout a lifetime, bonds and relationships are made between people that cannot be broken. Since people are so important to each other's lives, the death of one person can have a profound impact on those she had relationships with. The process of dealing with the impact of death is called mourning.

Identification

• Mourning or grieving is a universal process people go through when they lose someone close. It involves sadness, remembrance and honoring.

Types

• While all cultures mourn their lost ones, the way they do so varies. While some prefer to mourn alone, others prefer to do so in groups, and often mourning ceremonies are performed.

Religion and Mourning

• Religious practices often have specific mourning processes. The tearing of clothes, care of the deceased's body, making of condolence calls and participation of a week-long mourning "ceremony" is specific to the Jewish religion, for example.

Significance

• While people mourn a loss in order to remember and acknowledge the life of a person who has passed, the act of mourning is of particular importance to the person performing it. It allows him to accept the death and move on from it.

Seven Stages

• Although each individual will morn in their own way, there are several stages of mourning or grief. They include shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, reflection and loneliness, adjustment to loss, reconstruction of life and acceptance.

Grief Counselors

• Not everyone can get through the seven stages of grief on his own. It is the job of a certified grief counselor to help people get through their own mourning period healthfully.