As long as the parents are alive, we are still children who do not take death seriously.
But when they die, it is as if a wall that separated us from death were torn down.
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert
The death of one's parents is a dramatic and devastating experience for most people. However, by adulthood one has usually become largely detached from one's parents and developed into an autonomous person, so that the loss of one's parents can be dealt with appropriately after a period of grief. However, children are - the younger the more - physically and emotionally dependent on the affection and care of their parents, so much that the loss of a parent, their primary caregiver, often overwhelms the child's coping mechanisms to a great extent. The death of the parents is therefore, in most cases, a traumatic experience in childhood. If the surviving parent cannot give the child the necessary support and security as a result of this experience, it is advisable to seek professional help. While psychotherapy is a recognized method for dealing with traumatized children, the possibilities of education in this context are largely neglected. In agreement with Weiss, I am extremely critical of the tendency of many social workers to delegate work with traumatized children to the closed framework of therapy because of their own insecurities, because these children are not only traumatized children in the therapeutic setting, but also in the educational. Unfortunately, social pedagogy has so far not dealt with this topic enough, so that Denner's demand to "develop a socio-pedagogical model for dealing with traumatized children and young people" has not yet been realized. Knowing this deficit, I would like to discuss the possibilities of a socio-educational intervention for children who have been traumatized by the death of a parent.
Table of contents
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Trauma and child – a conceptual link
3. The death of the parents as a traumatic experience
3.1 The interaction of grief and trauma
3.2 The trauma of parental loss against the background of attachment theory
3.3 Influencing factors of child grief or trauma work
4. Possibilities of pedagogical action in the face of traumatic loss experience in childhood
4.1 Withstand trauma-specific re-staging: Maintaining a relationship, demonstrating security
4.2 Cognitive re-evaluation of what has been experienced as a pedagogical intervention (?!)
4.3 Psychoeducational parenting as indirect help for traumatised children
5. Concluding remarks
Bibliography
Internet sources:
1. Introduction
As long as the parents live, we are still children who do not take death seriously.
But when they die, it is as if a wall that separated us from death is being torn away.
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert
The death of the parents is a dramatic and harrowing experience for most people. In adulthood, however, one has usually largely detached oneself from one's parents and developed into an autonomous person, so that the loss of parents after a period of grief can be adequately processed. Children, however, are – the younger the stronger – physically and emotionally still so much dependent on the affection and care of their parents that the loss of a parent, their primary caregiver, often overwhelms the child's coping mechanisms to a great extent. The death of the parents thus represents a traumatic experience in childhood, in most cases. If the surviving parent cannot give the child the necessary support and security as a result of this experience, it is advisable to seek professional help. While psychotherapy is a recognized method in dealing with traumatized children, the possibilities of pedagogy are largely neglected in this context. The tendency of many social pedagogues, due to their own insecurity, to delegate the work with traumatized children into the closed framework of therapy, I stand, in agreement with White1, however, extremely critical of, because these children are not only traumatized children in the therapeutic setting, but also in the educational one. Unfortunately, social pedagogy has so far dealt too little with this topic, so that the demand of Denner2 to develop a "socio-pedagogical model for dealing with traumatized children and adolescents", so far could not be realized. Aware of this deficit, I would like to discuss in the following the possibilities of a socio-educational intervention in children who have been traumatized by the death of a parent.
At the beginning of my work, I present the concept of trauma in general and work out the peculiarities of child trauma processing (chapter 2), in order to then, in a second step, specifically identify the death of a parent as a traumatic experience (chapter 3). Here I first explain the interplay of trauma and grief (chapter 3.1) and then, in reference to the findings of attachment research, I highlight why the death of a parent in childhood is particularly traumatizing (chapter 3.2). Since the processing of traumatic loss depends on various factors, such as gender, the home environment, the circumstances of death as well as the cognitive development stage, etc., I present these in their respective effects in chapter 3.3. Afterwards, I will finally deal with the possibilities of social pedagogy in dealing with children who have been traumatized by the death of a parent (chapter 4). In this sense, I first draw attention to the phenomenon of trauma-specific re-staging and clarify how social pedagogues can maintain control through professional action in such situations and help the children in the long term (Chapter 4.1). Then I go to the von White3 described method of cognitive reassession, as a pedagogical possibility of trauma processing (ch. 4.2) and finally point to psychoeducational parental work, as indirect help for traumatized children (ch. 4.3).
2. Trauma and child – a conceptual link
The term "trauma" comes from the Greek and means translated "wound"4. According to psychological understanding, a trauma arises as a result of an extreme, threatening event, which overwhelms the coping possibilities of the affected person and thus causes mental injuries. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes the term "trauma", in the context of icd-105, as "a stressful event or situation of shorter or longer duration, with exceptional threat or catastrophic proportions that would cause a deep despair in almost everyone"6. Accidents, natural disasters, abuse, life-threatening illnesses or the death of loved ones – to name just a few examples – are events that have the potential to traumatise those affected.
In most cases, a traumatic experience is immediately followed by a state of shock in which the person is not yet able to realize what has happened. The inability to feel feelings, confusion or physical reactions, such as tre.B mors, freezing, etc., are symptoms that can occur at this stage. After the immediate state of shock has been overcome, long-term consequences become visible in many cases, which can be expressed in increased anxiety, depression, anger, sleep disorders, concentration and memory problems. Also the uncontrolled mental re-experience of the event in so-called flashbacks is a typical effect of trauma.7
While many of those affected suffer the consequences of trauma for a lifetime, others manage to live a happy life despite all the memories of the horror and grief. The prerequisite for this, according to Eckhardt, is that the person concerned succeeds in "growing" from the experience, finding a personal meaning and regaining confidence in the world."8 This mentioned process of "healthy" trauma processing proves to be far more difficult in children – compared to adults – and thus rarer. This is therefore due to the fact that children, due to their still insecure self- and world trust as well as their little life experience, are strongly dependent on the care and support of adults with regard to the processing of traumatic experiences. Due to the experienced helplessness in the course of a traumatic event, many children also tend to attribute the blame for the tragedy to themselves, thus further hindering their trauma processing. In addition, the still missing intellectual and linguistic abilities prevent children from subsequently gaining insight into what has happened and from articulating their thoughts, fears and emotions (for the purpose of emotional relief) as well as sharing them with others.9 Especially in very early traumatized children, deficits become visible in the course of development, since in infancy and infancy the ego function has not yet developed and thus traumatic experiences can not be split off or suppressed. Toddlers perceive what they have experienced only on a sensual-physical level, i.e. the trauma is "burned" into the child's body memory with all sensations. The processing is therefore hardly possible.10 white11 notes that "very early traumatizations [...] are not psychologically present, they are experienced close to the body as inner tensions and unrest, one then speaks of a 'traumatic formation of identity'." As a result, the traumatic incision can negatively affect the entire further development.
However, according to Hordvik, this connection is12, not sufficiently taken into account, because while the phenomenon of post-traumatic stress disorder in adults is relatively well researched, the intensity with which children experience and react to a traumatic event is misunderstood in many places. Many adults still acted in the belief that it was best for a child to simply forget what happened. Consequently, in order to protect the child from painful experiences and emotions, they behaved as if nothing had happened. Following this criticism, the English authors Kinchin & Brown13 out that the belief that mental injuries in children are not as deep-seated as in adults still has some representatives, but is not empirically at all secure. On the contrary, research has shown that "children need more, not less, understanding and care."14
Furthermore, researchers have found that the child's reactions to trauma are age-specific rather than trauma-specific15. Nevertheless, the nature of the trauma can also have a limited influence on post-traumatic reactions. While the child's reactions to neglect as well as sexual, physical or mental abuse, e.B. were examined in detail, the loss of a close person in childhood was for a long time not clearly identified as a risk factor for trauma. The question of whether childlike encounters with death have traumatic potential or whether a death should be regarded merely as an ordinary life experience is still controversially discussed.16 According to Simpson17 even in DSM IV, the American classification system for mental disorders, the traumatizing effect that a loss experience can have on the bereaved is falsely denied. Here, the painful loss, among all the stressors known to mankind, would not be taken into account in the diagnosis as the only stress factor. The author refers to this deplorable state of affairs with the words: "Even if a patient meets all the criteria for depression, DSM discourages us from making that diagnosis if the person has been bereaved." Even if "the regular presence of depressive symptoms in bereavement has been repeatedly confirmed."18
3. The death of the parents as a traumatic experience
Convinced that the death of a loved one can traumatize the bereaved – especially the children – I will work out the interaction between death and trauma in the following and then point out the special trauma of parental loss in childhood against the background of attachment theory. Finally, I will outline various factors that influence the child's grief or trauma processing in their effects.
3.1 The interaction of grief and trauma
In the course of his life, every person experiences separations and losses that he has to deal with. Not all separations, however, are only associated with negative consequences, but many also bring positive things with them and can become a "prerequisite for a better quality of life."19 The hope of a new beginning and later reunion can make it easier to deal with separations. However, if these hopes are not fulfilled because the loss is connected with a death, for example, confidence turns into despair. The traumatic thing about such a loss is the state of absolute powerlessness and helplessness, as well as the certainty that a vital relationship has been lost.20
Especially infants, due to their strong material and mental dependence, suffer considerable damage due to the loss of the closest caregivers. Also play various factors, such as low age, unfavorable family circumstances, etc.21, together, this can lead to the loss of parents becoming a trauma for children.22 In agreement with other authors23 emphasizes white24 that "the separation from the closest caregivers, from the people to whom the child [...] had a unique emotional bond, [...] usually traumatic".
When reading the specialist literature on the subject, it also becomes clear that the symptoms from which people with post-traumatic stress syndrome suffer greatly overlap with those of acute grief when losing a relative.25 Shock, repression, nightmares, feelings of helplessness, anger and guilt - to name just a few effects - are symptoms that can occur both as a result of trauma and after a death.
[...]
1 cf. White 2005 , p. 46
2 Denner 2003, p. 243
3 cf. White 2004, p. 76f
4 www.duden-suche.de
5 I nternational statistical C lassification of D iseases and Related Health Problems
6 http://www.dimdi.de/static/de/klassi/diagnosen/icd10/htmlamtl/fr-icd.htm?gf40.htm+
7 cf. Hordvik 1997, p. 37 and Kinchin, Brown 2001, p. 23f
8 Eckhardt 2005, p. 15
9 (Cf., ibid., p.77)
10 cf. ibid., p. 20, and Weiß 2004, p. 32
11 White 2004, p. 32f
12 cf. Hordvik 1997, p. 38
13 cf. Kinchin & Brown 2001, p. 5
14 Ibid., p. 56
15 cf. White 2004, p. 36
16 cf. Simpson. 1997, P. 7 + 13
17 (Cf., ibid., p.77)
18 Simpson 1997, p. 7
19 White 2004, p. 30
20 cf. Ruppert 2005, p. 117
21 The effects of these factors are discussed in Chapter 3.3 of this paper.
22 cf. Thill 1997, p. 103f and Weiß 2004, p. 30f
23 cf. Maywald 1997, p. 274, Ruppert 2005, p. 116f
24 White 2004, p. 31
25 cf. Simpson 1997, p. 11fff and illustration below
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