Break the [wounds + unawareness] cycle and guard your descendents

owl.gif Quiz: How Much Do You Know
About Bonding, Losses,
and Healthy Grieving
?

By Peter K. Gerlach, MSW

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The Web address of this quiz is http://sfhelp.org/basics/quiz_grief.htm

        Clicking links below will open a full window or an informational popup, so please turn off your brow-ser's popup blocker or allow popups from this nonprofit Web site.

        This is one of over 150 articles focused on healing psychological wounds, building high-nurtur-ance family relationships, breaking the [wounds + unawareness] cycle, and preventing divorce. This intro-duction describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each article is part of a mosaic of ideas, so the more you read, the more sense they'll all make. These articles augment, vs. replace, other qualified professional help.

        Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this - what do you need?

+ + +

         This self-assessment quiz can help you decide if you and/or important other people need to learn more about interpersonal bonds, losses (broken bonds), and healthy grief. The quiz exists because evi-dence suggests that incomplete grief is a significant stressor for many people, relationships, and fami-lies. For perspective, read this brief news article on "complicated" (incomplete) grief.

        See if you agree with these premises...

  • starting in infancy, normal people form emotional / spiritual attachments or bonds to special living things, places, rituals, dreams, ideas, and freedoms.

  • By choice or chance, these bonds break, causing losses. Losses can cause significant personal reactions that can impair normal living and reduce wholistic health.

  • Nature provides an effective way of "processing" these reactions, so we can gradually regain personal balance and wholistic health - if we have some key requisites.

  • Without these requisites, mourning can be slowed or blocked. This can promote a range of signif-icant personal and family problems like addictions, obesity, depression, rage and/or weeping "attacks," sleep and digestive problems, and relationship stresses.

  • Our feel-good, warp-speed media and society (a) don't teach lay and professional people what they need to know about healthy grief, and (b) distract adults and kids from mourning their inevitable life-losses completely. So - 

  • To avoid or free up the toxic effects of incomplete grief, people like you need to know and apply basic information about bonding, losses, and healthy mourning. "Apply" includes teaching this basic information to minor kids, and intentionally modeling healthy personal and family grieving policies.

        Family Project 5 in this nonprofit Web site offers resources to help interested adults learn how to do this. To use the resources effectively, people (you) need significant progress on Project 1 (assess for and reduce significant psychological wounds) and Project 2 (learn and apply effective-communication basics and skills).

        Other quizzes in this Web site offer ways to evaluate your knowledge on these vital topics. 

 Prepare

        To get the most from this quiz, first...

Read the premises underlying this Web site; and this overview of high-nurturance families. Forming and living from a healthy grieving policy is a vital component of family nurturance.

Study these introductions to...

  • normal personality subselves - slides or text,

  • Grown Wounded Children (GWCs), and...

  • recovery from psychological wounds - slides or text. These widespread, unseen wounds can hinder healthy grief.

Expect to learn some useful things here;

Choose an undistracted place and time to respond to the items below. You can't "fail" this quiz - just learn from it!. 

Print the quiz, and scan all the items before responding. Follow any links online after you finish to learn more.

Rate yourself. From 1 (very ineffective griever) to 10 (very effective griever), how effective a griever are you? ____ We'll revisit this question after you finish the quiz...

"Good Grief" Quiz

1)  Five related factors that promote widespread personal, marital, and family stress are:

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  •  

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2)  What is human attachment or bonding , and how does it happen? 

 

 

 

 

3)  What can block the normal ability to form human bonds? Blocked people have little reason to grieve, and may appear to be cold, distant, impersonal, over-analytic, unfeeling, uncaring, detached, and aloof. Do you know anyone like that? For extra credit - do you know what this inability to bond is called by professionals?

 



 

4)  In a healthy-grieving context, what is a “loss”?

 

 

 

5)  What's the important difference between a change and a loss ?
 

6)  Name the two kinds of personal losses: ____________________ and ____________________ .

7Name at least eight common kinds of broken psychological bonds (losses) other than death:

__________________________________        _______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________

8)  Describe two ways  personal bonds get broken. 

 

9)  What are the three levels of wholistically-healthy grieving?

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  • (for some people) 

10)  What are the specific phases of each of these three levels, and how can you tell when each stage is “done”?

Level 1 phases: ____________________, ______________________, _____________________,

__________________________, and ________________________.

Level 2 phases: __________________,  __________________, ___________________,

________________, and _________________;

Level 3 phases: __________________,  ___________________, ___________________,

and _________________.
 

11)   Seven requisites for healthy three-level mourning are:

__________________________________        _______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________, and

__________________________________
 

12)  Describe specifically what “incomplete grief” is: 

 

 

13)  Name at least six symptoms of incomplete grief:

__________________________________        _______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________

 

14)  Name four or more typical personal consequences of incomplete grief in a child or adult:

__________________________________        _______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________


15)  Describe
(a) what inner permission to grieve means, and (b) how to tell if an adult or child really has solid inner permission:

 

 

16)  Describe what outer (social) permission to grieve means, and how to tell if an adult or child really has solid outer permission: 

 

 

17)  Name at least three reasons  that adults and kids from low-nurturance childhoods may have trouble grieving losses effectively:

18Why is major progress on the first two family Projects necessary for success at this fifth "good-grief" project?

Project 1: _____________________________________________________________________
 

Project 2: _____________________________________________________________________

        Note: adults in average stepfamilies need progress on two more Projects:

Project 3: _____________________________________________________________________
 

Project 4: _____________________________________________________________________
 

19 How long does effective grieving take? 

 

20Describe the difference between a pro-grief and anti-grief relationship or family:

 

21)  Describe (a) at least four things typical "losers" need from their supporters, and (b) "effective grief support."

__________________________________        _______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________

Effective grief support is...

 

22)  Name at least four specific things family adults can do to finish incomplete grief:




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23)  Describe an effective or healthy personal and family grieving policy.

 

 

24)  Say your (a) personal and (b) family grieving policies out loud now, and where you learned them. "No policy" is a policy!
 

25)  Compare your current grieving policies with the personal policies of each of your main childhood caregivers, and of the family you grew up in. Would you say each of these policies is/was wholistically healthy or toxic?

 

 

26)  Name the five most impactful losses (broken bonds) in your life so far: 




27)  On a scale of 1 (I've never grieved this loss) to 10 (I have fully accepted and adapted to this loss), rate how well-grieved each of these losses is now.

        If you're not in a divorcing family or stepfamily and don't expect to be, skip to #30.

28)  Name at least six typical physical and invisible losses resulting from family separation and/or divorce:

__________________________________        _______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________
 

29)  Name at least six typical physical and invisible losses typical adults and kids commonly experience from (a) stepfamily re/marriage and (b) combining households (cohabiting):

__________________________________        _______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________

__________________________________         ______________________________________
 

30)  Name five or more reasons that incomplete grief in an adult or child causes major personal and relationship problems.

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31On a scale of 1 (very ineffective griever) to 10 (very effective griever), how effective a griever are you? ____. Would the people who know you best agree with your rating? Option: rate the grieving effectiveness of each person you care deeply about.

32)  Is your true Self (capital "S") responding to this quiz, or is someone else?

Awarenesses...        

 

 

 

        Pause and reflect - what are you aware of now? For perspective, I've met very few people who could answer most of these questions accurately. Option: think of the adults you know best - do you think they could answer most of these quiz items? Would they be interested in trying to do so? If not, they're at risk of the toxic effects of incomplete grief.

        Premise - our ancestors and current society have generally ignored or minimized the importance of  loss-impacts and healthy personal and family grieving. If you agree, consider these three practical options you have for raising others' awareness of this vital life and relationship skill - starting in your home and family...

        The good news: with (a) your wise, resident true Self guiding you, and (b) patient study and reflection, you can learn the answers to all of these quiz items and (c) enhance your ability to do good grief. Doing this is vital for high family nurturance, personal health, and healthy relationship bonding. 

        Is there someone else you'd like to discuss this quiz and related info with? If so, is anything in the way of your doing so now?

Continue learning here, and/or...

  • follow selected links above,

  • scan the Project-5 link-index and these selected books on "good grief," and...

  • review these Q&A items about "good grief."

        Pause, breathe, and recall why you took this quiz on healthy-grief basics. Did you get what you needed? If not - what do you need? Who's answering these questions - your wise, resident true Self, or someone else?

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Updated October 29, 2008