End of Life Care and Bereavement

This entry covers end of life care and bereavement influenced by palliative care and death studies. Although death is often thought of as a biological event, dying is a social process that happens over time. Grief occurs alongside and is embedded in this process and is not limited to the time after death. During this time, psychologists can provide assessment, intervention for patients and families, consultation with and support of health care professionals, grief therapy, programme development, evaluation and research. Topics covered in this entry are drawn from different disciplinary understandings and practices of end of life care as well as grief studies and include death denial and death anxiety, awareness contexts, decision-making, total pain and holistic care, anticipatory grief, models of grief, theories of attachment and loss, continuing bonds, social and cultural differences, complicated grief, and countertransference and burnout.