Centre for Policy on Ageing



Grief and loneliness in older people — case study accounts of conjugal bereavement
Author(s)	John Costello
Journal title	Quality in Ageing, vol 3, no 4, December 2002
Pages	pp 3-11
Keywords	Spouses ; Bereavement ; Loneliness ; Isolation ; Case studies.
Annotation	Grief and its concomitant loneliness are common problems in the social process of ageing. This paper uses case studies to describe the perceptions of four older bereaved people and their experiences of loneliness following conjugal bereavement. Case study accounts provide an opportunity to explore, describe and interpret data that may not yield to a simple analysis. In this paper, the accounts include a collection of information on the respondents' experiences of loss in the form of "durable biographies" that were typical, revelatory and critical. Respondents took part in semi-structured interviews about their experiences as part of a larger ethnographic study. This paper reflects on their comments, and raises theoretical and practical issues to do with loneliness following loss of a spouse. It points out that bereavement research is dominated by psycho-analytical conceptualisations which place emphasis on the "grief work" hypothesis, with less attention paid to bereavement models that highlight the social impact of loss in older people. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-030213005 A
Classmark	SN: DW: DV: TP: 69P
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.