Dual Process Model

Being defined as “the psychological, behavioral, social and physical reactions to loss of someone or something that is closely tied to a person’s identity”(Casarett, Kutner, & Abrahm, 2001), grief is a “negative emotional response” (Dean A. Shepherd, 2003) that can affect one for days to even years. In the past, it was believed that most people recover from grief through the Kübler-Ross model, namely disbelief, yearning, anger, depression and acceptance. However as time progressed, the dual process model proposed that grieving people could participate in other activities that they are interested in to divert their attention, while withdrawing from their loss. Even though one is able to resume work while recovering from grief, it is often at work where the recovery process is not being supported and hence results in detachment. Aside from personal loss, loss of jobs also contributes to people suffering from grief. Since work makes up a large part of people’s lives, it is important that work acts as an avenue for one to heal. The creation of meaning via current jobs or new jobs will aid in restoring the lives of people. The healing process from grief can be further improved if there were to be support from the organization and superiors.
In this article, the author mentioned works of Freud, Maciejewski et al. and Stroebe and Schut to illustrate how people recover from grief through time. Furthermore, Bento’s and Zell’s works were also used to further emphasize her point that support from work plays an important part in the process of healing. However, other theoretical perspectives that the author did not recognize would include that of Wortman and Silver, as well as that of Bonanno and Kaltman. Wortman and Silver argues that the last stage of the Kübler-Ross model, which is acceptance is not always attainable. (Wortman & Silver, 1989) Instead of feeling deep grief followed by recovery over time, they suggested that there is other ways people adjust to