Grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something that has died , to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, spiritual and philosophical dimensions. While the terms are often used interchangeably, bereavement refers to the state of loss, and grief is the reaction to that loss. The grief associated with death is familiar to most people, but individuals grieve in connection with a variety of losses throughout their lives, such as unemployment, ill health or the end of a relationship. Between and , there was extensive skepticism about the universal and predictable “emotional pathway” that leads from distress to “recovery” with an appreciation that grief is a more complex process of adapting to loss than stage and phase models have previously suggested. The Two-Track Model of Bereavement , created by Simon Shimshon Rubin in , is a grief theory that provided deeper focus on the grieving process. The model examines the long-term effects of bereavement by measuring how well the person is adapting to the loss of a significant person in their life.
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