Common and diverse aspects of emotional experience and crisis coping categories in case of loss for women in Latvia

Abstract

The goal of the qualitative research is to investigate common and diverse aspects of the emotional experience of loss caused by death of a close person and divorce as well as to discover crisis coping categories in these situations being reflected in women narratives. Crisis experience have been investigated by analyses of partly structurised interviews of 7 women with experience of loss of a close person and 8 women with experience of divorce. The emotional, cognitive, physical and behavioral changes have been investigated. The information obtained gives the background of understanding of common and diverse aspects in emotional experience in both kinds of losses such as reaction to crisis, although significant contextual differences have been indicated within the process of grieving and divorce and corresponding to it - emotional experience. Using the hermeneutical way of data analyses, three categories of crisis coping methods have been indicated: mental revision, mutual activities and use of personal resources thus characterizing significant aspects of crisis coping process. The sub-systems created within framework of three categories makes united system reflecting crisis as multidimensional process of different kinds of internal and external aspects.