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Types of grief

People may experience different types of grief depending the situation they are experiencing.

• Anticipatory grief
• Complicated grief
• Caregivers

Anticipatory grief

We all know that we're going to die sooner or later. Some of us, however, receive advance warning. We contract a terminal illness and are given a sense of how much longer we will live. Or, almost worse, we develop a debilitating disease that robs us of our faculties, leaving us alive but helpless or unknowing, requiring constant care.

While the prospect of death or profound decline brings intense emotional turbulence, it can also be looked upon as an opportunity to prepare, to reflect, to accept -- and to help those closest to us to do the same.

With the knowledge of impending death may come anticipatory grief. This form of grief is a common response to the expected loss, a type of advance bereavement. Anticipatory grief includes many symptoms similar to those that materialize after a death and can involve conflicting feelings and enormous anxiety and stress. This grief may be made more intense by unresolved issues amongst family members, and a desire on the part of the caregivers not to distress the patient. Watching a loved one experience a prolonged illness and wait for death is emotionally exhausting and can strain even the most solid of relationships. At the same time, the patient may be very upset, not only by the prospect of leaving this world but also for being the cause of such sadness, and will also grieve.

Being given the chance to say 'good-bye' doesn't make it any easier to do. Anticipatory grief doesn't lessen the grief felt after a death, nor does it diminish its duration. Indeed, the grieving process cannot be completed without the actual loss.

A grief counselor may be of great help in such situations, working not only with the person who is dying, but also the caregivers, friends and children to make the inevitable outcome somewhat easier to bear.