[[alternative]]The grieving process of widows

[[abstract]]Abstract The purpose of this paper is to explore the holistic process of how widows were adjusting their grief and to provide those who are concerned a localized vision of program design and research planning. Accordingly, the aims of the paper are as follows: I. To understand widows’ physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions during the early bereavement II. To explore the factors affecting the effects of bereavement III. To analyze the process of widows’ experience transforming and learning from their bereavement IV. To propose concrete suggestions about the ways to help the widows Based on the aims of the paper, the following conclusions are reached by using qualitative interviews: I. As for the reactions to widows’ bereavement, disordered cognitive reactions, interacting with atypical physical reactions, negative emotional reactions, and behavioral reactions avoiding the death, constitute the main part of grief widows need to adjust .: a. Different cognitive impacts result in the different contents of cognitive reactions and others. b. The transitional stage of widows’ cognitive reactions are from “disbelief”, through “ ambivalence between resistance and acceptance”, to “understanding the invalidity of resistance”. II. Available resources, more influential than personal factors and situational factors surrounding the death, are found to be major power of helping widows transit their stages of the grieving process. III. “Time to get to the intervention stage” and “the validity of intervention itself” are two major references to the results of widows’ grieving process. The following suggestions are proposed according to the conclusions described above: I. To improve adjusting capability, here are some suggestions for widows: a. Religious explanation can decrease resistance, and help accept reality of the death. b. Self-awareness and internal locus can avoid giving negative self-image. c. By adopting assistance from professional, widows can make sure the direction of their grieving process. d. To keep cognition flexible and open, widows can lower the destruction of bereavement and stay aware of external resources. II. To enhance effectiveness of assistance, those who surround a widow are suggested to provide emotional support of highly empathy, assist widows find proper reasons of the death, help the widow to approach other widows, and avoid inappropriate evaluation or blame on widows. III. To provide widows with professional intervention, the professionals concerned are suggested to realize, on the basis of research or clinical experiences, the destruction and values caused by the death, help widows to clarify the origins and factors of their grief, apply widow-to-widow programs, by which persons with similar background experiences can share with each other, and incorporate units concerned to provide effective resource network for better life adaptability.