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five - Religious responses in coping with spousal bereavement
- Peter G. Coleman, University of Southampton
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- Book:
- Belief and Ageing
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 01 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 05 July 2011, pp 79-96
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Summary
Religion and bereavement
Up until recently the use of religion as a coping resource in circumstances of bereavement has been relatively ignored in both psychology and sociology. Indeed, as Holloway notes in her review of ‘negotiating death in contemporary health and social care’, little ‘intellectually rigorous’ attempt has been made to integrate theological (and philosophical) reflection with psychosocial approaches to dying and bereavement (Holloway, 2007: 91). This is particularly surprising when one considers that up to 85% of the world's population is thought to have some kind of religious belief (Sedikides, 2010) and that most if not all religions have specific teaching about the meaning of death. Even more surprising is the fact that neglect of the relationships between religion, death and bereavement also apply within gerontology. Not only are older adults (as we have seen in Chapter Two) the most religiously active members of society in both the US and the UK, but also the rises in life expectancy have led death and bereavement to be increasingly concentrated in the later stages of life.
Religion may be a unique resource with distinct potential benefits or therapeutic properties for helping older adults cope with bereavement. Whereas other factors or resources such as social support, the circumstances of the bereavement, or even counselling may all be involved in coming to terms with a loss, in gradual readjustment, and in preventing social loneliness, these factors may be less helpful in addressing the existential issues or concerns that can be evoked by a significant bereavement and that may also become more important in later life. In this respect religion can provide sources of meaning or ways of understanding bereavement, loss, and death that can be experienced as more personal, profound or philosophical than reliance on rational details about the loss itself and may in different ways be experienced as helpful or beneficial. Indeed, there is much anecdotal evidence to testify to the usefulness of religion in circumstances of bereavement.
For most British older adults, religion, or more specifically the Christianity with which they were brought up, may at some residual level still be an important influence, particularly at times of death.
four - Ageing and faith: trajectories across the lifespan
- Peter G. Coleman, University of Southampton
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- Book:
- Belief and Ageing
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 01 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 05 July 2011, pp 59-78
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Stability and change of spiritual belief in later life
Traditionally older people are expected to be more religious than younger people, and there are good social and psychological reasons for this. Religious leadership is seen as an appropriate role for an older person, and advancing years are associated with increasing spirituality rather than materiality of goals. Discussion of this subject within the social science literature dates back at least as far as William James (1902) and most commentators since then have attributed the association between religion and age to the way religion answers questions about the meaning of life which become more salient as people age (Marcoen, 2005; McFadden, 2005).
Of course it is not only in later life that religion provides a sense of significance, belonging and rootedness to both individuals and societies. But increasing life experience and the growing closeness of death encourage greater reflection on the meaning of life and death. Thus it seems natural that traditional cultures have typically required older people to be the guardians of the community's spiritual values and beliefs that sustain its life, especially in times of crisis. Religion can thus provide older people with an important social function, and this role in turn promotes their sense of generativity and consequently benefits also their mental health (Gutmann, 1997; Coleman and O’Hanlon, 2004).
At the more personal level religious beliefs help to address concerns arising from increasing awareness of limitation and finitude as well as questions about loss and suffering. For example, religion provides resources in responding to questions about survival in states of growing dependency. Early work conducted by Duke University in North Carolina demonstrated the salience of religion, including the use of religious forms of coping, for older people (Blazer and Palmore 1976; Koenig et al, 1988a, b). Subsequent studies have also strongly supported the mental health benefits of religion among ill older people (for example Dillon and Wink, 2007). In fact the empirical evidence suggests that the health associations of religion, from quicker recovery from physical and mental illness to lowered mortality rates, are stronger in older age groups, suggesting an age-related benefit to continued belief (McFadden and Levin, 1996).