The emotional impact on humans of losing a pet.
For many pet lovers, losing a pet is like the loss of a loved one. The feeling can be so profound and tragic to the point where some people can’t stop grieving the death of their favorite pet. This is usually because of the strong bond between pets and their owners. Because pets like dogs and cats live for an averagely short number of years, owners watch them grow from when they are pups till they die, and can’t do anything about their deaths. This feeling of helplessness at the fate of their companion animal can be devastating for a lot of people. Even though pet owners grieve in different ways when they lose their pets, a common denominator is the excruciatingly painful feeling of sadness that
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For many centuries, philosophers and psychologists have been studying the emotional effects of losing a companion animal on their human owners. A groundbreaking work on this subject is Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' On Death and Dying. In the book, Elizabeth outlined the five stages of grief people feel at the loss of a loved one. They include denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It is important to know that the people grief in different ways and the sequence might vary from person to person.
Denial
Denial is a natural part of the grieving process as the bereaved is unable to come to terms with their loss. But it is crucial that people don’t deny they are in grief because expressing your feelings is the best way to get over the event quickly.
Anger
Pet owners become angry over the loss of their companion animals, as they are enraged about their inability to save their pets. They may think of things they could have done to avert the loss, especially if the loss was due to an accident or theft.
Bargaining
As part of the grieving process, pet owners may keep asking questions like what if they did so and so, if only they could spend more time with my dog and so on. These issues can envelop the pet owner with a lot of sadness.
Why did they die? Why didn’t you stop it from happening? These are common questions asked following a loss. During this time of processing, two feelings are predominant; anger and guilt. The feeling of anger can be externally directed toward other people such as family members, colleagues, store clerks, bank tellers, and even pets. The anger can also be directed inwardly; this is when someone is angry with themselves. In both of these situations, the anger is misdirected. The anger being experienced is actually anger at the person that died. That is not meant to say we are angry with the person that died, rather we are angry at the loss of their physical presence in our life. We have been robbed of the opportunity to be with our loved one. Guilt is the other strong emotion that can be present when we are experiencing a loss. Many individuals get lost in guilt. These individuals believe they could have, should have, or would have been able to prevent their loved one from dying. If we step back and look at the situation, we realize we are only human. It is not our fault someone has died. We are not powerful enough to actually stop death from happening. Guilt is self-blame and it becomes a viscous circle that makes it hard to process grief. When individuals are able to rid ourselves of anger and/or guilt, it becomes possible to find
D1: I have decided to look at a 6 year old going through bereavement. Bereavement means to lose an individual very close to you. When children go through bereavement they are most likely to feel sad and upset about the person’s death. Children at a young age may not understand when a family member dies. Children may not understand bereavement. For example a 6 year old’s father been in a car crash and has died from that incident. Death is unpredictable and children can’t be prepared for a death of a family member as no one knows when someone is going to die or not. Unfortunately every child can experience bereavement even when a pet dies. It is important that we are aware that effects on the child so we can support them in the aftermath.
When we encounter the death of a loved one, it’s hard to understand and realized that the person is gone. According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross, individuals enter different stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and
All over the world and every walk of life, people experience the loss, and mourning as part of the normal life. Mourning usually occurs as a response of loss of relationship with the person, people or even animals with whom you are attached to such as death of a loved one, terminal illness, loss of your pets and animals. There are five stages of the normal grieving process: denial or isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance; the grieving process
Accepting What’s Not There Have you ever wondered why you feel the way you do after you lose someone? Well that feeling is grief, and the many stages that come with it. Grief is a deep sadness, for the loss of a loved one, especially through death.
It is not easy to cope after a loved one dies. There will be lots of mourning and grieving. Mourning is the natural process you go through to accept a major loss. Mourning may include religious traditions honoring the dead or gathering with friends and family to share your loss. (Mallon, 2008) Mourning is personal and may last months or years.
Death and Grieving Imagine that the person you love most in the world dies. How would you cope with the loss? Death and grieving is an agonizing and inevitable part of life. No one is immune from death’s insidious and frigid grip. Individuals vary in their emotional reactions to loss.
Individually, everyone has their own methods of dealing with situations and emotions regardless of any positive or negative connotation affixed to them. One prime example of this comes with grief. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying” suggests that there are five stages of mourning and grief that are universal and, at one point or another, experienced by people from all walks of life. These stages, in no particular order, are as follows: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance. Each individual person works through these stages in different orders for varying levels of time and intensity, but most if not all are necessary to “move on.” In order for positive change to occur following a loss, one must come to terms with not only the event but also themselves.
When first receiving news about the death of a loved one, the normal reaction is shock and denial. No one wants to hear that their father, grandmother, or uncle had just died, and according to Kübler-Ross, one way people cope with grief and loss of a loved one is denial. This means that a person may try and hide from the facts and block out what others are trying to say. That person might deny the reality of the situation and have thoughts like, “He not dead, that’s impossible. He was doing fine just yesterday” or “This must be some kind of mistake.” Denial is a defense mechanism that buffers the immediate shock that comes after hearing such news. It is difficult for the person to accept the fact that someone dear to them is no longer with them, so they rebuke the truth and instead choose to avoid any type of encounter that forces them to face the truth and reality. This even extends to avoiding thinking about the situation. Gibran sta...
When one of my pets die it makes me change just like what happened to sal when her mom died and it changed her because she is sad. In the novel Walk Two Moons by sharon creech, sal’s mom’s death made sal change because now she kisses trees, she doesn’t know how to feel, and when each day passes everything becomes harder and sadder for sal.
The stages of death are known to be a process of mourning that is experienced by individuals from all phases of life. This mourning ensues from an individual’s own death or the death of a loved one. Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross dedicated much of her career to studying this dying process and in turn created the five stages of death. The five stages are; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These stages may not occur in sequence and sometimes may intersect with one another (Axelrod, 2006). The reality of death many times causes a feeling of denial; this is known as the first stage. In this stage, people have many emotions and have a tendency to hide from reality. This reaction is momentary, but should not be rushed. The patient or loved one needs time to adjust to the awaiting death. This adjustment helps bring them through to the next stage; anger. Anger is a common feeling and many times routes from a feeling of not being ready. This emotion may be directed toward God, strangers, friends, family or even healthcare professionals (Purcell, 2006). In some cases, it can be targeted...
Death is the one great certainty in life. Some of us will die in ways out of our control, and most of us will be unaware of the moment of death itself. Still, death and dying well can be approached in a healthy way. Understanding that people differ in how they think about death and dying, and respecting those differences, can promote a peaceful death and a healthy manner of dying.
I was very excited to take Death and Dying as a college level course. Firstly, because I have always had a huge interest in death, but it coincides with a fear surrounding it. I love the opportunity to write this paper because I can delve into my own experiences and beliefs around death and dying and perhaps really establish a clear personal perspective and how I can relate to others in a professional setting.
Death is something that causes fear in many peoples lives. People will typically try to avoid the conversation of death at all cost. The word itself tends to freak people out. The thought of death is far beyond any living person’s grasp. When people that are living think about the concept of death, their minds go to many different places. Death is a thing that causes pain in peoples lives, but can also be a blessing.
Since animals, especially dogs, share similar emotions as people they to make great companions. Animals do show us how to love better, because their emotions are more pure than a human's. According to Mary Lou Randour, in "What Animals Can Teach Us About Spirituality", animals are spiritual companions to humans. She tells the story of a boy who, after murdering someone, receives a dog to care for as a form of therapy. The dog comforts him, and the teenager learns to love the animal over time. The boy's pet is "healing his soul" by teaching him how to love. Dogs give their masters unconditional love, never questioning the human's orders or disciplines. I thought the story of the dog appearing in the author's backyard as her dead grandfather was rather outlandish. All of Randour's examples of how animals influence our feelings were viable aside from the disappearing ghost dog.