TPC-Journal-V5-Issue4

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 4 452 way a person appraises a situation can impact the way the person reacts to it. Primary appraisal is an important step in processing the stress of bereavement, since grieving is such an individualized experience. The qualitative comments recorded in the open-ended question portion of the survey supported the statistical relationship between primary appraisal and bereavement. For example, one participant indicated that her worldview had changed when she responded, “My world has become gray; I have made myself closed. I live in a rain cloud and now know that good people do bad things that change lives.” The participant had changed her worldview such that her world became a smaller, more restricted place. Another stated, “This death, this loss, makes small things seem insignificant. Material things are insignificant. Relationships with people are more important. I don’t have a fear of dying and in fact, feel like I will die at a young age.” This concept of primary appraisal is based on the idea that emotional processes are dependent on a person’s expectancies about the significance and outcome of a specific event. The same event within the same community (in this case, suicide within the military) can elicit responses of different quality, intensity and duration due to individuality in experiences and personality (Krohne, Pieper, Knoll, & Breimer, 2002). The different kinds of stress identified by the primary appraisal may be embedded in specific types of emotional reactions, thus illustrating the close conjunction of the fields of stress and emotion (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Third, a statistically significant negative relationship was reported between secondary appraisal and bereavement, suggesting that survivors who make a negative appraisal of their ability to control the outcomes of their spouse’s death are more likely to experience bereavement. In the future, when examining outcomes of interventions that impact coping, beliefs about a person’s ability to perform specific behaviors related to coping would need to be highlighted. This concept is known as specific coping behaviors and is also pertinent to stress, coping theory and secondary appraisal (Chesney et al., 2006). Part of secondary appraisal is the judgment that an outcome is controllable through coping; another part addresses the question of whether or not the individual believes he or she can carry out the requisite coping strategy (Chesney et al., 2006; DiClemente, 1986 ; Hofstetter, Sallis, & Hovell, 1990). The qualitative comments recorded in the open-ended section of the survey supported this finding. For example, one participant indicated her appraisal of the situation by stating, “Everyone must learn to face the misfortune, because life on the road will not be smooth.” Another stated that “time can dilute all and I must face life and accept my reality;” yet another wrote, “I want to work on longer range goals to give myself some structure and direction to my life and not focus on my loss. I am only interested in rebuilding my life.” However, other participants stated that it was harder to assess the loss and to move forward after the suicide. One participant stated the following: I often find myself complaining to God about what seems senseless or unjust and unfair. I find myself bogged down in fear and even anger at myself or the person who died and “left” me. I do not accept what happen[ed] to me and my children. Some participants reported not knowing what to do. An example of this feeling is the statement, “I perceive stress as threatening. I feel totally helpless.” Perceived self-efficacy, defined as a belief about one’s ability to perform a specific behavior, is a salient component of this theory. It highlights the importance of personal efficacy in determining the acquisition of knowledge on which skills are founded (Bandura, 1997; Chesney et al., 2006).