Supporting Men When They Grieve

Perry Garfinkel wrote about the differences in how men and women grieve in yesterday’s New York Times and discussed the growing number of bereavement support groups geared to men in hospitals and hospices around the country.

Concern about reaching men in grief has gained new urgency with shifting demographics. The number of men age 65 and older increased by 21 percent from 2000 to 2010, nearly double the 11.2 percent growth rate for women in that age group, according to census figures. As the gender gap in life span narrows, experts suggest that more men will be facing the loss of loved ones, particularly spouses.

Many will be not be prepared for the experience. The loss of a spouse often is crushing for men physically as well as psychologically. In a 2001 paper published in The Review of General Psychology, psychologists at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands confirmed earlier data showing widowers have a higher incidence of mental and physical illness, disabilities, death and suicide than widows do. While women who lose their husbands often speak of feeling abandoned or deserted, widowers tend to experience the loss “as one of dismemberment, as if they had lost something that kept them organized and whole,” Michael Caserta, chairman of the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Utah, said by e-mail.

The Harvard Bereavement Study, a landmark late 1960s investigation of spousal loss, found that widowers experienced the death of a wife as a multifaceted tragedy, a loss of protection, support and comfort that left many at sea. The men in the study relied heavily on their wives to manage their domestic lives, from household chores to raising their children, the researchers noted.

HFA Program Officer & Bereavement Specialist, Phil Carpenter, MDiv, commented on the article, "For too long there has been somewhat of a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to bereavement. The truth is there are many different ways in which men and women cope with their losses. It is important to remember that just as people are individual, so, too, is their grief."

Research is also changing views of bereavement specialists in the field as to how both men and women grieve, and how that grief differs:

There are also differences in the length of time men grieve, compared with women, and how long it takes to move on. An old axiom that “women mourn, men replace” turns out to be untrue.

“It used to be thought that men grieve acutely and heal more quickly, and that women grieve chronically over a longer time period,” said George A. Bonanno, a clinical psychology professor at Columbia University in New York.

But now, Dr. Bonanno said, many researchers believe that grief follows a more complex pattern in both men and women.

“No matter what sex, we oscillate between positive and negative emotions, between waves of sadness about the loss and hope for the future,” he said in a telephone interview. “This can be frustrating for men, who often seek the ‘quick-fix’ approach.”

Sherry Schachter, director of bereavement services at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx and a grief specialist for 25 years, said in a telephone interview: “While women grieve intuitively, open to expressing their feelings, men are ‘instrumental’ grievers. They’re not comfortable with talking about their feelings, and they prefer to do things to cope.”

Both Dr. Bonanno, and Dr. Schachter, quoted in the article, are panelists in HFA’s upcoming New Perspectives educational program, Beyond Kübler-Ross: New Perspectives on Death, Dying, and Grief. Available beginning November 10, 2011, this program explores the most current theoretical perspectives on death, dying, and grief, emphasizing areas where understandings have been challenged and developed since the 1969 publication of Kübler-Ross’ epochal work, On Death and Dying.

The New York Times also features the voices of five widowers who attend a men’s bereavement group at Calvary Hospital and comments are being shared on the Well blog.