Behaviour Therapy and Bereavement

Abstract

In clinical practice one often sees clients with various social problems which a psychoanalytically trained therapist would immediately diagnose as an unresolved, pathological mourning process. Behaviour therapists do not seem to notice this, as there is little literature on the subject of grief and mourning from this corner of psychotherapy. The article by McAULEY and QUINN (1971) is the only one in the field which could be found to deal with mourning. LAZARUS (1968), LIBERMAN and RASKIN (1971) and WOLPE (1971) deal with the theoretical aspects of clinical depression, and BURGESS (1968) and LEWINSOHN et al. (1968) deal with behaviour therapy and depression. But depression and mourning are not the same, even if depression plays a major role in mourning. This dearth of behaviour therapy literature, in contrast to the extensive psychoanalytic literature, may be due to the fact that, like unresolved oedipal conflicts, unresolved pathological mourning processes may exist only in the eye of the beholder. Our contention, after treating a number of clients in the manner described below is that the problem does exist, but we are in possession of a treatment and are looking for a theoretical basis for this type of treatment.