Rando's Classical Stage Based Grief Theory Of The Six R Process Of Grief

Ambiguous loss is a loss that occurs without closure or understanding. There are two components to this type of loss. The first is that the individual loss may be physically present but psychologically absent. The second is that the individual loss may be physically absent but psychologically present. Perinatal loss does not fall into either category but the loss often leads to the parents feeling confused and without any real sense of closure for the loss. The fetus has either never been alive or it has been alive for a very short period of time. This forces the parents to face both birth and death simultaneously. Perinatal loss is often very obscure with little to no explanation or reasoning as to why it has occurred.
Complicated grief is grief that follows a loss that is out of context with normal, developmental losses (Kersting et al, 2012). A perinatal loss is not within the developmental context of loss. Children are expected to outlive their parents. Parents envision an entire lifetime for their child from the moment they confirm the pregnancy. The loss of the fetus during pregnancy and the loss of an infant days after birth, represent an unclear loss of future for many parents. Predictors of complicated grief after prenatal loss include: lack of social support, pre-existing

The theory conceptualizes six processes that must be accomplished throughout mourning. Her Six R’s fall within three different phases of mourning. These phases are the avoidance, confrontation, and accommodation phases (McCloud and Walter, 2016). Within her theory, Rando makes sure to differentiate grief and mourning. Her description of grief is “it is a phase of involuntary reactions to a loss, whereas mourning is considered to be an ongoing process that we are active in as we move towards