Introduction: While a natural response to loss, the grief associated with bereavement following caring for someone dying at home, is often complex. Complexity occurs because the caring experience has often involved complete relinquishment of aspects of a prior life, high responsibility for extended time, extensive changes, and sometimes trauma.   

 

Bereavement recovery requires people to move through a major revision of their assumptions about the world, a reworking of their continued relationship with the person who died, and many practical and emotional adjustments, all quite dependent on their unique predeath experiences.  And many bereavement models do not adequately link the pre and post-death experiences. 

 

Aim:  To develop a bereavement model that assists carers in their bereavement into their experiences in a helpful and more wholistic way.

 

Method: When staff of a community-based palliative care service debriefed with each other, they collected feedback from what they were commonly hearing and developed a pictorial model to represent the layers of experience.  Bereaved carers provided comments at their sessions as the model was refined, until little new feedback was received.

 

This emergent model assisted the bereaved carer in gaining insight into their situation and facilitated their emotional expression. The normalising and affirming experience promoted the client’s adaptation to the transition and a healthier grief trajectory. 

 

Discussion: Many people respond to pictures, graphs and diagrams alongside language-based interventions, due to their learning styles and capacity for comprehension and engagement.  Visual tools like the Rollercoaster Model may assist those overwhelmed or suffering from high stress or trauma, to gain perspective, track progression, be reassured about what is ‘normal’, and to assist articulation of their experiences.

Conclusion: The Rollercoaster Model is a unique and useful therapeutic and educative tool to assist in supporting bereaved carers.