Grief is the natural, healthy, spontaneous, unlearned, normal, emotional, healing process that occurs after a significant loss. Grief is experienced uniquely by each of us, and is often experienced in waves, with emotions, thinking, physical, social and spiritual/religious responses coming and going in terms of the intensity, duration and order of our reactions to the loss.
One of the keys to coping is awareness. Awareness is helped if you can learn about yourself. This holistic grief scale is for you to help yourself gain knowledge of your grief, and then to do something with that new awareness.
There are 5 sections in the grief scale. Each section represents a part of being human. They include: emotional, cognitive, physical, social, and spiritual/religious.
The Center for Grief Recovery’s Holistic Grief Scale
To be able to understand the waves of grief we have ranked each experience from 1 to 10: 1 being the low end of the scale and 10 the most intense. For example, if you have been experiencing helplessness since the death, and it is causing you to feel increasingly incompetent, frozen, or unable to exert your personal power in the world, then you would rate yourself near a 10 on helplessness.
After you have completed the scale you will have a picture of your grief at this moment in time. It is a good idea for you to periodically return to the scale and rate yourself again. You will then have a chart of your progress.
Remember that the grief scale can also capture your current experience not only after a death, but after some significant change or transition in your life, such as the loss of a job, divorce, move to another country, etc.
If you score in the severe range of the scale on most or all of the dimensions, we recommend you seek professional help.
The 5 Components of the Holistic Grief Scale
Emotional Components
Cognitive Components
Physical Components
Social Components
Spiritual/Religious Components
By, David Fireman, LCSW
The grief scale you mention makes a lot of sense. Can you share the source for this scale? Who came up with it/published it? Was it this organization?
This is a research question for a thanatology student!
Thanks for your comment!
The scale was developed by our center and is useful for clients and counselors to gauge current level of functioning on the various measures.
That said, it is not a researched instrument in the sense of being tested for reliability and validity. Instead, it is a subjective measure, typically taken before and after [in some cases in the middle of] treatment to help in self assessment.
Hi! I would like to ask your permission to use this instrument as a basis for the questionnaire I will be creating for my dissertation. I will be looking into the effect of grey divorce on adult children. Your response is highly appreciated.
lucille
Thanks for your interest in the grief scale. Please contact me to discuss your ideas for its use.
Thanks.
It is a clear view of the the grief process and instrument of ssessment. I am working with group support and it is very useful.
Chaplain Maria
Thank you! It is a great way to look at the bereaved holistically.
We’ve received many positive remarks about the holistic grief scale. In fact, over the years since I developed the scale, several students from various countries have asked permission to use it in their studies of grief and mourning among different demographic populations.
It makes me wonder about finding a way to establish qualitative reliability and validity for the scale as a research tool. Right now, it is a purely subjective assessment for personal use.
In any case, I’m glad you found the instrument helpful in your grief process!
Dear sir/madam,
I hope this message finds you well. This scale has been incredibly helpful as I work on a paper about grief’s impact on psychological, emotional, and physical wellbeing for a group project in a class.
May I have your permission to include the mentioned scale in my paper? I believe it will significantly enhance my research. Additionally, if you want we could connect over email for any further details you might want!
Thank you for your time and expertise.
Best regards!
Thank you for your comment. I would be glad to speak with you directly about your paper and how the scale would enhance it. Feel free to contact me at 773-274-4600×1.
Dear madam/sir,
Thank you so much for taking out the time to get back to us, your efforts are genuinely appreciated. Would it be feasible for us to correspond via email since this is an international number and it is a bit difficult for us to communicate this way and also our university only allows us to communicate through our university-issued email. I would greatly appreciate if you could provide me with your email address.
I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thank you!
Hello, I am an LPC at a non-profit organization in Tulsa, OK. Our organization has a team that facilitates a healing retreat called Rachel’s Vineyard. The retreat was founded by Dr. Theresa Burke, Ph.D. This retreat is focused on men and women who are experiencing grief, depression, anxiety, etc specifically related to abortion. We frequently also see retreatants who are grieving child loss from stillbirth and miscarriage, as well. I am currently looking for a self-report scale to utilize with retreatants to measure subjective experiences of grief pre and post retreat experience. Though a licensed professional facilitates the retreat, I would say the retreat is non-clinical. I came across this scale, and think it would be excellent for our setting. This scale could be beneficial for us in gleaning feedback about the impact of the retreat on participants experience of grief. I would love to visit more with you about the potential to receive permission to utilize this scale.
Thank you, Christine! Please reach out to us by phone at (773) 274-4600.