MMG6: Types of Grief: Disenfranchised Grief

Intro

I’m glad you chose to join me for this discussion on Disenfranchised Grief. 

Did you know that there are many types of grief? 

Death alone is challenging to grieve, but to add how others treat or see us while grieving can add more on your shoulders. Keep in mind that the type of grief we’ll be discussing isn’t “good” or “bad,” it’s a mere way for you to identify what you are experiencing. When you understand what you are experiencing, it can be used as a grounding place and it can bring normalcy to the experience, which in itself is gratifying and beneficial. 

Disenfranchised Grief has two parts. The first is  when someone experiences a loss and those around them minimize or don’t acknowledge the impact of the loss. The second part is when someone experiences a loss regarding a decline in health and others around them don’t understand or acknowledge that loss. 

Initially, Disenfranchised Grief may sound similar to Anticipatory Grief in that the grief one is experiencing is minimized, not acknowledged, or not understood, but there are key differences. Disenfranchised grief focuses on how the griever is socially received by others, while Anticipatory Grief focuses on the grief one experiences prior to someone’s death. To hear more about Anticipatory Grief, click on the Types of Grief: Anticipatory Grief, after listening to this podcast.  

In the 80’s, Dr. Kenneth Doka did case studies on issues related to individuals who lost their ex-spouses. During his case studies he heard an individual say, “No one understood why I should be grieving.” He then began doing research with individuals who where is dyadic relationships without the benefit of marriage. For example, people who are living together, people who were engaged, people who were dating a long time, or people who were close to engagement . He noticed that they too had similar experiences of those who lost an ex-spouse. A statement he reports hearing was “ I had a significant loss  but no one understood it. Nobody was there for it.” Another said,  “It was as if I didn’t have a right to grieve.” That’s when he coined the word Disenfranchised Grief. In an interview, he states that Disenfranchised Grief is “Having a loss, and can’t publicly mourn, openly acknowledge, or doesn’t receive social support.” 

Since then, he’s written many books, including: Grief is a Journey: Finding Your Path Through Loss where he discusses how “grief isn’t an illness to get over, but an individual and ongoing journey.”

Another book is The Longest Loss: Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia. In this book, he focuses on the “grief issues that dementia creates for patients, families, and professional caregivers during the course of the illness, as well as the grief reactions of families and other caregivers following the death.” 

Dr. Doka has written over 30 publications where he was the sole author or co-author. Due to time, I won’t list all of them, but I will share a couple more, his first publication. Dr. Doka’s first book was written in 1989, entitled, Disenfranchised Grief: Recognizing Hidden Sorrow. Although it’s currently out of print, its concepts were further reviewed and developed in his 2001 book, Disenfranchised Grief: New Directions, Challenges, and Strategies for Practice.

To get the entire list of Dr. Doka’s publications, go to DrKenDoka.com. He travels across the U.S. speaking and has several interesting youtube interviews that I encourage you to check out. 

I find it interesting how he breaks down Disenfranchised Grief into categories. There is no particular order. The first category is loss that isn’t acknowledged, such as divorce, loss of a pet, loss of a job, religious conversion, or loss of a home. 

The second category is the relationship isn’t acknowledged. This occurs often because society