Characteristics of Graduate Counseling Student Grief Experiences

Abstract

This study explored the incidence of grief and resulting effects experienced by graduate counseling students. A total of 157 students from three universities completed surveys about their grief experiences. The authors calculated descriptive statistics, as well as Kruskal–Wallis H tests and Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficient, to identify relationships between variables. Results indicated that approximately 86% (n = 129) of students had experienced loss within their lifetime. Participants reported emotional, cognitive, physical, behavioral, interpersonal, and world assumption grief effects, with statistically significant relationships to both type of loss and reported closeness to the deceased. These findings provide new information on the specific and multidimensional grief effects these students experienced and offer practical insight into how grieving students can be best supported during their counseling training.

Keywords

bereavement grief graduate students counselor education prolonged grief disorder

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

American Counseling Association (2014) 2014 ACA code of ethics, Alexandria, VA: Author.

American Psychiatric Association (2013) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th ed. Arlington, VA: Author.

Balk

D. E.

(2011) Helping the bereaved college student, New York, NY: Springer.

Balk

D. E.

Walker

A. C.

Baker

(2010) Prevalence and severity of college student bereavement examined in a randomly selected sample. Death Studies 34: 459–468. doi:10.1080/07481180903251810.

Battle

C. L.

Greer

J. A.

Ortiz-Hernández

Todd

D. M.

(2013) Developing and implementing a bereavement support program for college students. Death Studies 37: 362–382. doi:10.1080/07481187.2011.634087.

Beam

M. R.

Servaty-Seib

H. L.

Mathews

(2004) Parental loss and eating-related cognitions and behaviors in college-age women. Journal of Loss and Trauma 9: 247–255. doi:10.1080/15325020490458336.

Boelen

P. A.

van de Schoot

van den Hout

de Keijser

(2010) Prolonged grief disorder, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder are distinguishable syndromes. Journal of Affective Disorders 125(1): 3, 374–378. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2010.01.076.

Bonanno

G. A.

(2004) Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events? American Psychologist 59: 20–28. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.20.

Boyer

S. P.

Hoffman

M. A.

(1993) Counselor affective reactions to termination: Impact of counselor loss history and perceived client sensitivity to loss. Journal of Counseling Psychology 40: 271–277. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.40.3271.

10.

Center for the Advancement of Health (2004) Report on bereavement and grief research. Death Studies 28: 491–575. doi:10.1080/07481180490461188.

11.

Chen

H. J.

Bierhals

A. J.

Prigerson

H. G.

Kasl

S. V.

Mazure

C. M.

Jacobs

(1999) Gender differences in the effects of bereavement-related psychological distress in health outcomes. Psychological Medicine 29: 367–380. doi:10.1017/S0033291798008137.

12.

Colton

Covert

R. W.

(2007) Designing and constructing instruments for social research and evaluation, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

13.

Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (2015) 2016 CACREP standards, Alexandria, VA: Author.

14.

Dillen

Fontaine

J. R.

Verhofstadt-Deneve

(2009) Confirming the distinctiveness of complicated grief from depression and anxiety among adolescents. Death Studies 33(5): 437–461. doi:10.1080/07481180902805673.

15.

Doughty Horn

E. A.

Crews

J. A.

Harrawood

L. K.

(2013) Grief and loss education: Recommendations for curricular inclusion. Counselor Education & Supervision 52: 70–80. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6978.2013.00029.x.

16.

Dunn, O. J. (1964). Multiple comparisons using rank sums. Technometrics, 6(3), 241–252. doi:10.2307/1266041.

17.

Hardison

H. G.

Neimeyer

R. A.

Lichstein

K. L.

(2005) Insomnia and complicated grief symptoms in bereaved college students. Behavioral Sleep Medicine 3(2): 99–111. doi:10.1207/s15402010bsm0302_4.

18.

Hayes

J. A.

Yeh

Y. J.

Eisenberg

(2007) Good grief and not-so-good grief: Countertransference in bereavement therapy. Journal of Clinical Psychology 63: 345–355. doi:10.1002/jclp.20353.

19.

Janowiak

S. M.

Mei-Tal

Drapkin

R. G.

(1995) Living with loss: A group for bereaved college students. Death Studies 19(1): 55–63. doi: 10.1080/07481189508252713.

20.

Kersting

Brähler

Glaesmer

Wagner

(2011) Prevalence of complicated grief in a representative population-based sample. Journal of Affective Disorders 131: 339–343. doi:10.1016/j.jad.201011.032.

21.

Lawrence

Jeglic

E. L.

Matthews

L. T.

Pepper

C. M.

(2006) Gender differences in grief reactions following the death of a parent. OMEGA Journal of Death and Dying 52(4): 323–337.

22.

Lee, S. A. (2015). The Persistent Complex Bereavement Inventory: A measure based on the DSM-5. Death Studies, 39, 399–410. doi:10.1080/07481187.2015.1029144.

23.

Mathews

L. L.

Servaty-Seib

H. L.

(2007) Hardiness and grief in a sample of bereaved college students. Death Studies 31: 183–204. doi:10.1080/07481180601152328.

24.

McClam

Varga

M. A.

(2014) Grieving students in helping professions. Journal of Human Services 34(1): 94–99.

25.

Neimeyer

R. A.

Laurie

Mehta

Hardison

Currier

J. M.

(2008) Lessons of love: Meaning-making in bereaved college students. New Directions for Student Services 121: 27–39.

26.

Ober

A. M.

Granello

D. H.

Wheaton

J. E.

(2012) Grief counseling: An investigation of counselors’ training, experience, and competencies. Journal of Counseling & Development 90: 150–159. doi:10.1111/j.1556-6676-2012.00020.x.

27.

Prigerson

H. G.

Bierhals

A. J.

Kasl

S. V.

Reynolds

C. F.

Shear

M. K.

Day

Jacobs

(1997) Traumatic grief as a risk factor for mental and physical morbidity. American Journal of Psychiatry 5(154): 616–623. doi:10.1176/ajp.154.5.616.

28.

Prigerson

H. G.

Bridge

Maciejewski

P. K.

Beery

L. C.

Rosenheck

R. A.

Jacobs

S. C.

Brent

D. A.

(1999) Influence of traumatic grief on suicidal ideation among young adults. American Journal of Psychiatry 156(12): 1994–1995. Retrieved from http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/.

29.

Prigerson

H. G.

Frank

Kasl

S. V.

Reynolds

C. F.

Anderson

Zubenko

G. S.

Kupfer

D. J.

(1995) Complicated grief and bereavement-related depression as distinct disorders: Preliminary empirical validation in elderly bereaved spouses. American Journal of Psychiatry 152: 22–30. Retrieved from http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/.

30.

Prigerson

H. G.

Horowitz

M. J.

Jacobs

S. C.

Parkes

C. M.

Aslan

Goodkin

Maciejewski

P. K.

(2009) Prolonged grief disorder: Psychometric validation of criteria proposed for DSM-V and ICD-11. PLoS Medicine 6(8): 1–12. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000121.

31.

Schwartzberg

S. S.

Janoff-Bulman

(1991) Grief and the search for meaning: Exploring the assumptive worlds of bereaved college students. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 10(3): 270–288.

32.

Schweiger

W. K.

Henderson

D. A.

McCaskill

Clawson

T. W.

Collins

D. R.

(2012) Counselor preparation, 13th ed. New York, NY: Routledge.

33.

Servaty-Seib

H. L.

Hamilton

L. A.

(2006) Educational performance and persistence of bereaved college students. Journal of College Student Development 47(2): 225–234. doi:10.1353/csd.2006.0024.

34.

Servaty-Seib

H. L.

Taub

D. J.

(2010) Bereavement and college students: The role of counseling psychology. The Counseling Psychologist 38(7): 947–975. doi:10.1177/0011000010366485.

35.

Shear

M. K.

McLaughlin

K. A.

Ghesquiere

Gruber

M. J.

Sampson

N. A.

Kessler

R. C.

(2011) Complicated grief associated with Hurricane Katrina. Depression & Anxiety 28: 648–657. doi:10.1002/da.20865.

36.

Smyth

J. M.

Hockemeyer

J. R.

Heron

K. E.

Wonderlich

S. A.

Pennebaker

J. W.

(2008) Prevalence, type, disclosure, and severity of adverse life events in college students. Journal of American College Health 57(1): 69–76. doi:10.3200/JACH.57.1.69-76.

37.

Supiano

K. P.

Vaughn-Cole

(2011) The impact of personal loss on the experience of health professions: Graduate students in end-of-life and bereavement care. Death Studies 35: 73–89. doi:10.1080/07481187.2010.507321.

38.

Taub

D. J.

Servaty-Seib

H. L.

(2008) Developmental and contextual perspectives on bereaved college students. New Directions for Student Services 121: 15–26. doi:10.1002/ss.263.

39.

Tolstikova

Fleming

Chartier

(2005) Grief, complicated grief, and trauma: The role of the search of meaning, impaired self-reference, and death anxiety. Illness, Crisis, & Loss 13(4): 293–313. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/home/icl.

40.

Varga, M. A. (2015). A quantitative study of graduate student grief experiences. Illness, Crisis, & Loss. doi: 10.1177/1054137315589700.

41.

Walker

A. C.

Hathcoat

J. D.

Noppe

I. C.

(2012) College student bereavement experience in a Christian university. OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying 64(3): 241–259. doi:10.2190/OM.64.3.d.