William Worden’s Task Model

Willian Worden’s task model proposes a renewal process of mourning. Grief has often been conceived as a step-by-step process that each person goes through as they process the loss. A phased proposal that attributes a passive role to the subject and that in the elaboration of particularly intense and complicated grief can play against it.

Losing a loved one involves a period of mourning. Referring to this period as a staged process reduces the subject’s involvement in pain processing. As a result, often the processing is purely the result of the passage of time.

In contrast, William Worden, one of the best known specialists on bereavement and loss, has devised a path in which individuals actively transition during their grief processing. This path leads to mourning in a healthy way and prevents the pain from becoming chronic.

What is the loss?

All life transitions, even the most positive ones, are not without losses: from changing jobs, which implies the loss of the old job and old colleagues, to becoming a parent leaving behind a life with fewer responsibilities. In general, the losses of the human being in society can be categorized as follows:

• Due to the lack of a loved one.
• Physical or mental, resulting in reduced functionality.
• Linked to the workplace and, therefore, to the social role we exercise in our daily life.
• Caused by wars or natural disasters.
• Of precious objects.

• Couple separations.

What is mourning?

Mourning is a path that pushes the subject towards a new phase of life characterized by the absence of a loved one. Bereavement triggers a series of biological, emotional, and behavioral reactions that help the subject develop a new reality without the lost affection.

Several authors have proposed a management of bereavement according to a process by stages or phases. Instead, William Worden has come up with a series of tasks that people need to accomplish.

However, this “active” perspective of the subject does not exclude the temporal variable as an important element for overcoming mourning.

William Worden’s mourning task model

William Worden’s model goes from accepting loss to adapting to a context where the lost affection no longer exists.

Given that bereavement is a process and not a state, bereavement tasks require a cognitive effort that prepares the individual to face certain circumstances and to reach acceptance of the mourning experience, i.e. to live in a different world than the previous one. .

1st task: accept the reality of loss

When a loved one passes away, even if for natural reasons, we experience a feeling of unreality. The first mourning task involves facing the person’s death by accepting that we will no longer be able to meet them, at least not in our earthly life.

Often after the loss it is easy to see his face again in people met on the street or in other places. It is also common to keep reserving, for example, a seat at the table. Overcoming this first task is not easy, because we struggle to accept death.

2nd task: processing the pain following the loss

The physical, emotional, and behavioral pain in the grieving process is more than real. If the pain is not recognized, it will manifest itself in another way, in the form of wrong behaviors and physical-psychological disturbances. Not everyone experiences pain in the same way and with the same intensity, but it is not possible to suffer a loss and not experience a minimum of pain.

We are usually not prepared for the flurry of emotions caused by bereavement, even if one was aware of the person’s impending loss.

Denying the loss prevents the overcoming of grief. People who consciously avoid pain will never be able to get rid of it. It is in fact of vital importance to resort to psychological support if we realize that we are unable to externalize our pain.

3rd task: adapt to an environment without loss

Adapting to an environment where the lost person no longer exists involves a series of internal and external tasks. Internal adaptation is about changing one’s image, values ​​and beliefs as a result of that person’s death.

External adaptation, on the other hand, refers to all those habits of daily life that will no longer understand the lost person.

In the first case, the subject must be able to adapt his personal identity to the mournful process. We are not referring to simply accepting our new status, being a widower or being orphaned, but rather how our spiritual beliefs and value system are affected by the loss.

External adaptation is also very important, because it forces us to take on daily responsibilities that previously fell on the lost person, and which we now have to face alone.

4th task: create a connection with the lost person and continue living

This is William Worden’s latest mourning task, which describes the need to bond with the lost person.

Keep the memory of it but without it interfering with our future ties and with people still alive. The links with the lost person can be different, we mention a few:

• Retain missing person’s clothes
• A picture
• A video

This is one of the most difficult tasks of the task model, since if it is not done the subject tends to remain “chained” to the person, losing his grip on the present world. When a person clings too much to the relationship with the lost person, to the point of preventing himself from creating new bonds, it is important to seek psychological support.

Conclusions on the task model

Bereavement is a need for adaptation. Meeting difficulties along the way is more than normal. The problem arises when these difficulties become chronic and do not allow the subject to move forward, to the point of causing problems of a psychological nature.