Cultural Coping Strategies and their Connection to Grief Therapy Modalities for Children: An Investigation into Current Knowledge and Practice

Dealing with the death of a loved one can be a difficult time in the life of an individual, especially a child. In certain cases, adults and children can develop extreme grief responses as a result of this significant loss. An individual’s culture can play a major role in the way they understand and respond to the death of a loved one. To find out more information regarding the interplay between culture and grief responses, it was useful to interview professional grief therapists on this topic. These interviews sought to discern whether or not there was a useful connection between the positive coping strategies that seem to exist in multiple cultures and the grief therapy models used in Western culture. Once the data from these interviews were transcribed, coded and analyzed, the researcher was able to discern several themes that related to cultural coping strategies having a useful connection with grief therapy modalities. This research provides important information for anyone attempting to use cultural coping strategies as a means to help individuals and children cope with the death of a loved one and increase their resiliency.