The Six Losses that people

experience in Life
Lecturer: Rev Morris Sing Key

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No part of this work may be reproduced, including photocopied, without written permission of UPH.

Learning Objectives
1. To become familiar with these six losses
2. To apply these losses both for your patients and
yourself.
3. To become sensitive to your patients as they come
to terms with some of the losses caused by their
illness.

THE SIX LOSSESS MOST PEOPLE

EXPERIENCE IN LIFE
Grief and Loss is not just limited to
the death of someone.
Mitchell and Anderson identified Six major
kinds of loss that people experience in life

THE SIX TYPES OF LOSS

Material
Loss
Relationship Loss
Systemic
Loss
Functional Loss
Intrapsychic Loss
Role
Loss

Material Loss

Material Loss is the loss of a physical

object or of familiar surroundings
to which one has an important
attachment.

MATERIAL LOSS

Probably one of the first losses we

experience is when a child drops a
scoop of ice cream on the ground
or when a toy is too badly broken
to be mended

MATERIAL LOSS

Many persons who have undergone

material loss report an almost
irresistible urge to replace the lost
object.

MATERIAL LOSS

In some cases where a comparable

replacement is impossible because of
the expense, a copy or some other
symbolic replacement is substituted.

MATERIAL LOSS

Those who replace lost material

objects often conclude that the
replacement is never quite the same
as the original, even when by
objective standards it is better in
quality or costs more.

MATERIAL LOSS

The Story of my Daughters favourite

doll called Strawberry ...because of
the dolls red hair.

Relationship loss

Relational Loss is the ending of

opportunities to relate oneself to, talk
with, share experiences with, make
love to, touch, settle issues with, fight
with, and otherwise be in emotional
and /or physical presence of a
particular other human being

Relationship loss

It is an unavoidable component of
human life. Sooner or later we all
experience such a loss.
It may be partial, as in moving five
hundred miles away, or total, as with
widowhood

Systemic Loss

Systemic Loss is a loss where the

environment in which we live, work
or interact with.. changes.

Systemic Loss

Your Brother or sister is offered a

job overseas.
You move out of the family home to
go to UPH Medical school .your
parents will miss you.

Functional Loss

Powerful grief can be evoked when we

lose some of the muscular or
neurological functions of the body; we
call this functional loss.

Functional Loss

Most people react with horror to the

idea of a childs blindness yet the same
phenomenon in an elderly person
provokes a lesser reaction, reflecting
our underlying belief that functional
loss naturally goes with the aging
process/

Functional Loss

But loss is horrifying to young and

old. Going blind at seventy-five is
no less painful than going blind at
fifteen even if it does happen more
often.

Functional Loss
Amputation of a limb or breast...the
discovery that one must wear a hearing
Aid, undergoing a colostomy , having to
enter a nursing home because you can no
longer look after yourself ...all these
experiences are functional losses.

Functional Loss
The reaction is grief.
We may be aware that a hearing-impaired
acquaintance is touchy about her hearing
aid or that those who use guide dogs are
sometimes inappropriately angry if others
admire the dog.
What we may miss is that the touchiness
and anger are normal grieving reactions.

Intrapsychic loss

Intrapsychic loss is the experience of

losing an emotionally important image
of oneself, losing the possibilities of
What might have been.

The Dying of a Dream

Intrapsychic loss

A Married Lady is unable to bear children

She is infertile
She can Never be a Mother
It is a dying of a dream
There are some unmarried mothers
BUT she is the married unmother

Intrapsychic loss
We may encounter intrapsychic loss in
times of change or when a major task is
successfully completed.
Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut, referred in
television interviews to the enormous
sense of loss he experiences after setting
foot on the moon.

Role loss
Priests who become bishops, skilled workers who
become supervisors, and others who are promoted
may experience such gains as grief-producing losses as
well.

Role loss
Role loss is also visible when a single
person marries or a married person loses a
spouse.
The middle-aged person who changes
careers or enters school may experience
loss in assuming the roles of a student

Case study
You have been accepted into UPH Medical
school. Your family is not rich and both
mum and dad sacrifice by working long
hours but they think it is worth it .you
will be the first doctor in the family and
they are very proud of you.

Case Study
They are always sharing with everyone that
their son / daughter is studying to be a doctor.
Suddenly you get a call on your mobile.

Your dad has been hospitalized.

The doctors suspect cancer. ( MRSFIR)
Your dream to become a doctor is .???

What Losses are there for

You as a student
Your dad who may die

Your Mum who may become a widow