Dealing with Bereavement as an African American

One of the most famous statements made by Buddha is, “life is suffering.” What this implies is that simply by living one will experience some type of suffering. The death of a loved one or bereavement is one way in which humans suffer in their life. The following will discuss the topic of bereavement. More specifically culturally sensitive bereavement focusing on the African American population. A comprehensive literature review with culturally relevant information, the Diagnostic and Statistical manual V changes regarding bereavement, potential issues and symptoms, and forms of treatment will be discussed.

Literature Review

Considering that bereavement is something faced by all people regardless of culture, gender, or age there are mounds of research that has been conducted on this topic. This research includes typical and atypical symptoms, effective diagnosis, and the treatment of bereavement. However, the most important entity to consider is the individual bereaving. An article by Diala et al. reports research findings that indicate that African Americans are less likely to obtain mental health services than Caucasians. Furthermore, if African American individuals do seek services they are more likely to report negative attitudes related to their experience and less likely to return for mental health services if their illness persists (Diala, et al., 2000). One suggestion made for these variations is how the client perceives the services being provided and the majority of this perception is based on the clinician’s response to the grieving individual.

In order to appropriately respond to an individual that is dealing with bereavement, it is first important to have an understanding of how that individual is likely to grieve...

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...etween Major Depressive Disorder and bereavement. A competent and experienced professional should be able to identify these differences and apply the correct diagnosis. The risk of misdiagnosing Major Depression in an individual regardless of the stressor could be harmful and in the words of Zisook, “impedes healing (Zisook & Shear, 2013).” When considering the example of an African American woman who presents with depressive symptoms after her mother’s recent death, the previous exclusion would have discouraged a diagnosis Major Depressive Episode to be made. However, with the new DSM in use it is appropriate to make a diagnosis of Major Depressive Episode if careful consideration has been made involving the client’s history and cultural norms and it is found that a major depressive episode is occurring along with the grief ( American Psychiatric Association, 2013)