Zofia Dołęga

The article is devoted to the characteristics of a course of the psychological crisis caused by a critical event, which is the death of a child. The author of the work refers to the cyclical-phase model of developmental changes, which is well-known in the developmental psychology, and the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement (DPM) of Margaret Stroebe, Henk Schut and Catrin Finkenauer (1999, 2001, 2010, 2013, 2015). What parents experience after the loss of a child is not an identical and parallel process. The course of mourning in parents is not the same. Rather, it is the interweaving of different states of mourning, sometimes with a regression to previous states. The result is a different mental condition of the mother and the father as a consequence of dealing more or less successfully with the loss of a child. The paper, based on theoretical and empirical analyses, proposes an original model of four psychological statuses of parents after the loss of a child. It takes into account the differentiation of the mental condition of parents in connection with the possibility of adequate psychological help. The bereavement status model (MSK) takes into consideration the statuses of secondary adaptation, unfinished mourning, complex persistent bereavement disorder, and the status of possible post-traumatic growth. A hypothesis worthy of empirical verification has been formulated that in assessing the mental condition of parents after the loss of a child, it is worth proposing a specific diagnostic package containing information on the life situation of the family; the time that has passed since the death of a child; the sex of the parent; intensification of feelings of loneliness, availability of social support and its perception by parents, and the assessment of coping strategies for everyday stress. It remains an open question, what are the direct and indirect relationships between these variables and whether their differentiation proves the legitimacy of distinguishing certain conditioning statuses of mourning in parents after the loss of a child. This is currently the subject of an empirical research testing out the MSK model.

A child’s grievance usually consists in a sudden violation of the emotional attachment and a chronic feeling of the existential threat. This may have a fundamental impact on the further development of the child. Unfortunately, the scarcity of research on the subject, both concerning the perception of the child itself and the process of grief, often involves not only the diagnostic difficulties, but also the selection of therapeutic procedures that can be discussed in terms of evidence-based programs. The subject of this article is a critical review of the theoretical positions related to child mourning, including its complex and traumatic nature.

The article focuses on the problem of loneliness among school children. In our approach this phenomenon is multi-faceted. The concept involves three aspects. The first one is the sense of loneliness as social non-acceptance, neglect and social exclusion. The second is emotional loneliness, which, in turn, means a negative assessment of oneself as a partner in relationships with people of special emotional significance. It is also associated with low mood and other not very intense negative emotions. Finally, the third one is existential loneliness, which involves a feeling of disorientation, uncertainty and helplessness in the face of a perceived chronically insufficient integration with the world. The tripartite concept of loneliness was tested during the construction of a Scale of Loneliness for school children (SBS-C) based on a previously developed Scale of Loneliness (SBS) for young people (Dołęga 2013b; students aged 12–19 years). The adaptation of SBS to children was carried out in several stages involving teachers and a group of approx. 120 students of elementary school. Factor analyzes essentially confirmed the correctness of the theoretical model of the three factors of loneliness in children aged 8–13 years. The psychometric properties of SBS-C were also confirmed. The coefficients of internal consistency proved to be satisfactory: Cronbach’s alpha = .92 for the whole scale (SBS-C_TOTAL) and from .84 to .87 for the three subscales: social (SBS_SP), emotional (SBS_SE) and existential loneliness (SBS_SEG). The article discusses some of the issues concerning the construct validity, the payload, and the diagnostic criterion. A further research direction is set out.

The article addresses the issue of different categories of psychological crises. The main thesis of the work formulates the belief that feeling of loneliness (consisting of three dimensions: a feeling of social, emotional and existential loneliness) in crisis states is an important moderator (predictor) of their course and ultimately psychological consequences. In the theoretical layer, the problem raised here is based on the assumptions of life-span developmental psychology theory, and in the empirical layer refers to the results of a number of research projects in which a sense of loneliness among other numerous variables has been given the status of predictor. The results of the projects show that taking the feeling of loneliness into account provides a better insight into the direct or indirect consequences of psychological crises with different characteristics. This matters not only theoretically, but also practically. On the one hand, it raises awareness of the course and psychological consequences of crises caused by various risks, losses and relational deficits. On the other hand, it advocates the use of proprietary tools to measure feelings of loneliness: (SBS-C, 8–13 years), adolescents (SBS, 12–19 years), and adults (SBS-AD and SBS-ADC) (Dołęga, 2020).