Discuss The Strength Ad Weakness Of Psychological Theories Of Bereavement And Grief And Their Appropriateness For Social Works

Traditional psychological theories are associated with providing proper knowledge on understanding about the development of human psychology as well as behavioural transition. Grief and bereavement pose a potential impact on psychology, understanding and behaviour of human. This essay is going to represent two traditional psychological theories such as Freud's Psychodynamic theory and Paget's cognitive development theory, in order to explain the bereavement and grief of people. In addition to this, the essay will discuss the strength and limitations of these theories in order to explain how the grief and bereavement would impact on the psychology and behaviour of people. Through using proper evidence, this essay is going to highlight the appropriateness of these two theories to be applied to social work.

According to Dovidio et al. (2017), Freud’s psychoanalytic theory is one of the most important traditional psychological theory, which highlights the how human behaviour and psychology are influenced by different aspects of mins. Based on this theory there are three important aspects of the mind such as id, ego and superego, which interact with each other in order to develop, decisions, thoughts, judgemental approach, critical thinking and understanding of human.

When it comes to discussing the strength of Psychoanalytic theory on highlighting the impact of grief and bereavement of human psychology, it is important to discuss that how the three above-mentioned aspects of mind interact with each other. This theory assists today's, psychologist to understand how grief and bereavement effect on human psychology and behavioural transition. Moreover, it also assists the psychotherapist in order to conduct the effective process of counselling and therapies in order to provide effective treatment of the patient who had the childhood experience of grief and bereavement. This theory assists social workers to understand the psychology and behaviour of patient suffering from past experience of grief and bereavement. On the other hand, social worker can understand what type of interaction or therapies would be relevant to the mental status of patients. This theory also assists social workers to compare the current and past psychological status of patient, which is important to set proper clinical intervention in terms of treating the patient. Strong ang highly effective psychotherapies would be highly relevant for the patient suffering from depression, anxiety and loneliness. Based on this theory, id is the instant gratification of the basic urges and psychological needs of human, ego is the rational and pragmatic part of human psychology and superego is the process of obeying and understanding rules of society and parents (Cooper, 2015). These Three aspects develop the conscious and conscious forces within mind, which influence the thoughts, desire, activities and thinking process of people.

Social workers can apply theory in order to improve the decisions, ideas and thoughts of patients. Through developing the positive decisions and thoughts into patient, social workers can implement this theory to make positive transition of the behaviour and attitude of patients.

Grief and bereavement are the important consequences that pose potential impact on these the three major aspects of mind such as id, ego and superego. As stated by Lewis et al. (2017), psychoanalytic theory highlights that how childhood experiences impact on shaping the personality and however of people in later life. If the children experience grief and bereavement that comes from the loss of their lovable things or persons, it affects adversely on their behaviour and psychology. In most of the cases of people who had the childhood experience of loss, bereavement and grief, are reported to have poor mental strength, lack of decision-making ability and poor psychological strength. One of the most important examples of the application of Psychoanalytic Theory in social work is to conduct psychoanalytic therapy.

As stated, that, Kail and Cavanaugh (2018), Psychoanalytic Theory assists today's social workers and psychiatrists to apply the psychoanalytic therapy, in which they focus on the childhood experience and circumstances of people which can pose a potential impact on shaping their behaviour and psychology. Through using this therapy, most of that patient suffering from dissociative identity disorders, are treated in a successful manner. Through using this therapy, it is possible to highlight the past childhood memories of people, which take an important part in the behavioural and psychological transition. Moreover, this therapy assists social workers to provide strong support and care to the patient who has a history of bereavement and grief in early life. As stated by Giudice et al. (2015), Psychoanalytic Theory assists the psychologists to understand the reason behind depression, anxiety, the loneliness of people who have good physical status but poor mental strength. Therefore, Psychoanalytic Theory plays important roles in today's life in order to provide high-quality treatment and support to people having a history of grief and bereavement.

Along with these benefits of applying this Psychoanalytic Theory into practice, there are some important limitations that need to be considered while discussing grief and bereavement. There are several criticisms of this theory in order to apply it into practical life. In this aspect, Hurleman and Scheele (2016) mentioned that, although Freud is able to highlight the three major aspects of mind in his Psychoanalytic Theory, he is unable to make the clear discussion on how their interaction within human mind pose effect on shaping behaviour, understanding and attitude of people. For example, in case of people who have the childhood experience of social isolation, marginalisation, grief and bereavement, how these three-aspect work in making the negative transition of their attitude and behaviour (Greene et al. 2017). Moreover, although psychoanalytic therapy is effective for treating the patient with poor mental status, in case of a patient suffering from the high level of depression, anxiety and loneliness which is the result of their adverse childhood experience, the therapy is not relevant. This is because the psychoanalytic therapy assists psychologists on in understanding effect of grief and bereavement on patient’s psychology, but it is unable to promote proper rehabilitation of patent with development of their decision-making ability, cognitive skill and problem-solving skill.

In this aspect, another important traditional psychological theory is Piaget's cognitive theory. Strength of this theory in discussing grief and bereavement in early life is associated with providing a clear understanding of how cognitive skills of children are affected by adverse childhood experience. As stead by Greene et al. (2017), Piaget believed that intelligence, decisions and ideas are the fixed traits or characteristic of human being which develops as they grow in ages. This theory is highly effective for today’s psychologists in order to understand how bereavement and grief in early life affect cognitive development of the human being.

This theory is highly useful for social workers in order to improve the cognitive strength of patients suffering from depression, and anxiety. Through developing positive thoughts, creative ideas and decisions, social workers can use this theory to improve the overall mental state of patients. By applying this theory, social workers are able to answer that why the people having history of consistent bereavement and grief in their childhood, are highly prevalent towards depression, poor decision-making skill, lack of self-confidence and poor problem-solving ability. On the contrary Kail and Cavanaugh (2018) argued that, some recent research shows that not only adverse childhood experience such as bereavement and sorrow, but also the physical and biological factors have potential impact on the cognitive development of people.Through implementing this theory into practical field, social workers can improve the overall mental condition of patients. Through involving patient into different challenging task, social worker can improve the cognitive skills of patient such as their decision-making ability, critical thinking skill, problem solving skills and judgemental approach. However, in recent clinical world, most of the psychologist prefer Piaget’s Cognitive Theory over the psychoanalytic theory, as it provides the proper understanding of transition of human thoughts, decisions, ideas and intellectual power. Through using this theory, social workers are able to analyse that how negative experience in the childhood life such as unsupportive social and parental circumstances, social isolation, bereavement, grief and discrimination pose impact on the overall cognitive development of the people. As stated by Giudice et al. (2015), in order to provide proper treatment to patients having psychological disturbances, it is important to understand the decisions, ideas, thoughts and current psychological status of people. It is possible only by applying cognitive theory, which assists psychologist to evaluate that grief in early life pose adverse effect on developing the decisions, intellectual ideas, thoughts, understanding and critical thinking of people.

Along with the above-mentioned benefits there are limitation of Piaget's cognitive theory. According to this theory emphasizes more on eth cognitive development of human and ignore the other important aspects such as emotional, psycho-social and spiritual development of people. Therefore, today's social workers can face issues in applying this theory in treating psychotically weak patients, in which the theory would be unable to provide proper therapeutic ideas or suggestions. Moreover, in many cases social workers have to deal with some patients who have strong intellectual power and decision-making ability, but they suffer from high level of depression and anxiety. This theory is unable to explain this type of condition. Due to consistent experience of bereavement and grief in childhood some people suffer not only from the poor cognitive development but also from the poor emotional and physical development, which is overlooked in this theory. On the contrary Greene et al. (2017) argued that, emotional and spiritualty developed are the parts of overall cognitive development of human which is covered under Piaget's cognitive theory. Many social workers eliminate the cognitive theory from their preference list, as this is unable to provide proper treatment process which is important for both the psychological and physical improvement of patient suffering from depression due to childhood experience of grief and bereavement. In this aspect, recent evidences suggest that, cognitive theory is important for understanding the cognitive development of people but it is unable to highlight how the physical and emotional aspects are associated with shaping the psychology and behaviour id human being.

From the above-mentioned discussion, it can be concluded that, there are different traditional psychological theories that are associated with discussing the human psychology and behaviour. These theories assist people to understand that how childhood experience and memories pose potential impact on shaping human behaviour and attitude. Two important theories are Piaget's cognitive theory and Freud's Psychoanalytic theory. Both the theories have strength and limitations on discussing the impact of grief and bereavement on making positive and negative transition of human behaviour and psychology. Cognitive theory, assist psychologist to understand how cognitive behaviour of people are affected due to the negative experiment in childhood. On the other hand, psychoanalytic theory has shown that how the adverse childhood memory such as grief and bereavement pose negative impact on human psychology. Therefore, it can be stated that both the theories have important attributed on discussing the behaviour and human psychology with special reference to the impact of grief and bereavement on development of human behaviour and approaches.

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