There’s variation in how traumatic loss is defined in the research, but for our purposes, I think this definition from Wortman & Latack (2015) does the trick: In fact, research has shown that PTSD symptoms are not only found in those who survive violent and sudden deaths, but also those who experience the death of a close person to terminal illness. All deaths have the capacity to overwhelm, shock, terrify, and shatter worldview. Ultimately, one must allow for a wide range of variability when it comes to potentially traumatic events. So, for example, it is not a fact that a loved one’s death by homicide or MVA will be experienced as traumatic, only that it potentially could be.
It is true that certain types of death happen in a way that they are more likely to be experienced as traumatic, but it isn’t a given.
One cannot underestimate the impact of personal factors like emotional regulation, cognitive responses, secondary stressors, coping style, prior history of trauma, and access to support and resources in determining how a person responds to an event. Just a little more talk of subjectivity (sorry for those of you who like things black-and-white) it’s important to note that it isn’t necessarily the specific nature of the death that makes it traumatic, rather how the event is interpreted and experienced by the individual. On a whole, we recommend you learn what you can from what is ‘typical’ for a certain type of grief, but take differences with a grain of salt. Although some people might be able to relate to aspects of another person’s grief, no one can completely understand how anyone else feels. Although commonalities often exist amongst people who have experienced a certain type of loss, individual grief is as unique as the person experiencing it and their relationship with the person who died. Now before I start throwing around labels and making generalizations, I have to make my usual speech about the differentness of individual grief. Anyway, we are going to do our part to fill in the void, however, we’re going to broaden the conversation a bit and discuss the concept of traumatic loss.
That’s not to say good resources don’t exist, it just means they’re hard to find, so if you have a recommendation please feel free to share in the comments below.
She’d been looking around the Internet for resources and information on the topic and had noticed the literature was a little light. Recently a reader emailed us and asked if we’d write a post about grieving a violent death.