ASPECTS OF BEREAVEMENT THAT CAN BE DISENFRANCHISED

In life, there are certain situations in which an individual's grief is not recognized and unacknowledged by others, a phenomenon that has been termed disenfranchised grief. These individuals are denied the "right to grief" and are not offered social support, sympathy, or opportunities to express their emotions. Disenfranchised grief is more actively negative and destructive as it involves denial of entitlement. Disenfranchising messages actively discount, dismiss, disapprove, discourage, and invalidate, the experiences and efforts of grieving. And disenfranchising behaviors interfere with the exercise of the right to grieve by withholding permission, disallowing, constraining, hindering, and even prohibiting it. ( Attig ).

Kenneth Doka defined disenfranchised grief as the grief that people experience from a loss that is not, or cannot be, openly acknowledged, publicly mourned, or socially supported. There is a wide range of multiple losses that people experience on a daily basis that fits into a disenfranchised grief framework. These losses can range from changes in jobs and friendships to loss of a lover, through divorce or the death of a pet or due to the physical or emotional changes to a loved one brought on by conditions such as AIDS or Alzheimer's disease. In each case, where there was once an attachment, there soon follows a loss and its accompanying grief. The grief process, however, becomes more complex because the usual supports that facilitate the healing process are not available. ( Lenhardt ).

Disenfranchised grief is not confronted therapeutically but rather remains hidden, unrecognized, or unhealed. Doka, in his first anthology, recognized three types of disenfranchised grief: (1) relationship is not recognized, (2) loss is not acknowledged and (3) griever excluded. (