Bereavement and spiritual change

The thesis of this article is that bereavement is a life crisis that challe nges one's assumptions about human existence and Provides the grounds for s piritual change. Construing a new understanding of the meaning of human exi stence and revising assumptions about one's place in the universe is a sing ular form that indicates spiritual change at at work. Three aspects must be present for a life crisis to produce spiritual change: The situation must create a psychological imbalance or disequilibrium that resists reading bei ng stabilized; there must be time for reflection; and the person's life mus t forever afterwards be colored bg the crisis, the premise of this article links spiritual change to what F. W. Fowler (1981) termed transformed faith consciousness and argues that the dual process model of coping with loss ( M. S. Stroebe & H. Schut, 1995; hi. S. Stroebe, H. Schul, GI W. A. Stroebe, 1995; hi. S. Stroebe, H. Schut, & J. Van Den Bout, 1994) provides a means to understand how dealing with grief can evoke spiritual change. Some bl ie f case examples are used to examine the thesis that bereavement triggers sp iritual change.