University of Sydney. Available through link on the K. Gilbert web site. LeVieux, J. Terminal illness and death of father. In N.B. Webb pp. We have talked in this class about how grief can occur in a range of situations involving loss, not just in relation to a death.
Some losses are sudden or finite, while others linger over a period of time.
The meaning attached to the child, the birth, and the child's early experiences can lead parents to question themselves, and their roles. It can lead to feelings of guilt, inadequacy, fear, sense of failure, or despair. The parents can experience additional losses of previous friendships when others view the child as a burden or object of pity, and distance themselves from the family. One group of theories of grief, used to discuss these experiences of loss related to the birth of a child with significant disabilities, has been the stage-phase models. We examined these models early in the semester.