Adolescent Development and Bereavement: An Introduction

In order to provide the best support possible to grieving youth it is important to understand how bereavement impacts adolescent development and how adolescent development impacts bereavement. In this article, prominent youth bereavement author, David Balk, explores these two key components focusing on cognitive, behavioral, and affective responses during three stages of adolescence (early, middle, and later). Dr. Balk also examines traditional and more current understandings of human responses to bereavement, and also defines key terms in the grief and bereavement field (including disenfranchised grief, complicated grief, and the re-grief phenomena).