中華心理衛生協會

 Purpose: The mourning experience of a bereaved person involves psychopathology and healing. A few studies adopted the adaptive view to explain the process. This article explores family affective bereavement experiences from the existential approach. Methods: Critical literature reviews to related studies were used and bracket the taken for granted viewpoint to explore the alternative possibility to comprehend the affective phenomenology. Results: We found that the experience of bereavement entails 6 elements: body perceptions and dream narratives, personhood identity reservations, remnants of existing relationships with the deceased, cultural and religious beliefs, transference of space and time, and ethical bond dilemmas. In Chinese societies, there is a custom of dying at home. In dying, the meaning of existence is challenged. If a patient is in hospice care and they return home, they find familiar routines and feel ontological security, which helps them remain strong in the face of the disorder of dying. Returning home may soothe patients with a fear of death. We argue that bereavement is not only an individual mourning experience, it also constitutes an ethical conflict to families. Conclusion: We tentatively conclude that mourning is an implicit phenomenon. It requires self-cultivation in order to carry out daily activities. This tacit knowledge is not easy to identify, but it can be a route for identifying and addressing the root of suffering that is superior to explanations based in cognition.