Sexual Intimacy After Child Death

The process of grieving one's child is an awful experience. To lose a child seems out of order with the general trajectory of life. Whether through illness, violence, or suicide, a child's death can leave parents' with an uncertainty regarding their role as people, their role within a relationship, and their role in life. In addition to these uncertainties, the return or failure of return to sexual intimacy and that lack of social acceptability in openly discussing these issues causes additional stressors for grieving parents. This literature review will specify a need and significance for a grief-processing group catered towards parents who which focuses on the theme of sexual intimacy as it is affected by the child's death. Within a typical relationship, effective communication is already a difficult quality to learn. By creating a support group that focuses on psycho-education, grief models, and strategies to connect with one's partner, parents are given the potential opportunity to regain purpose, connect with one's partner, and have space to process grief. In order to assist both parents and facilitators to understand some of the research on the topic of sexual intimacy after child death, the following literature review includes beliefs on sexual intimacy after child death, gender differences in intimacy response after child death, grief theories, the role of attachment after loss, paternal and maternal experience after child death, adjustment after loss, and the efficacy of grief therapy.