Second Life for War Widows

THE FAMILY

The grief reaction to sudden death runs a predictable if painful course. After the loss, surviving family members may suffer from such psychosomatic complaints as gastrointestinal or respiratory problems. They are also likely to pass through a series of other disorders, from visions of the dead person to guilt feelings to hostility toward life itself. Psychologists who have studied grief recognize the importance of community support for bereaved persons. Sadly enough, even well-meaning family and friends are often unable to provide it--partly because of their own embarrassment over the subject of death.

The problem is posed by the Viet Nam war, which is creating thousands of widows who must grapple with grief. In an effort to help them, a Navy psychiatrist at Camp Pendleton, Calif., has set up a program that uses their common tragedy to turn them toward the future. A teacher of group therapy at U.C.L.A. before entering the service, Lieut. Commander Leonard Zunin launched "Operation Second Life" with the idea that the best help for widows can come from other widows. In a sense, he is simply employing the form of help more "primitive" societies take for granted: letting the bereaved relieve their grief by expressing it openly. Zunin sold the idea to his military superiors in the fearful jargon of his profession: "In a situation where commonality of loss of the husband is present, the group can be exceedingly supportive."

Running Away. After 18 months, most of the 30 war widows who have participated in the group sessions seem to agree, "Thank God for the whole thing," says Johanna Book, a striking blonde of 32. "I had been running away from my problems " The key to the group's therapeutic effect is the shift it encourages from widow to single woman. The process can take six months or more, and involves a gradual emancipation from the first shock and later depression, self-recrimination, self-pity and feeling of helplessness. With the group serving as a sounding board, the widows--who are in different phases of "grief reaction"--first voice their pent-up feelings and then focus on the future.

Often the sessions are hard work. Mrs. Georgia Harris, whose husband had been a Navy pilot, was emotionally blocked until she participated in a 14-hour marathon session. "When I left it," she recalls, "I felt like somebody had just peeled all the skin off my body. Everything was open." No attempt is made to curtail or suppress normal mourning. As they progress, the widows begin to confront the emotionally exhausting problem of rebuilding their social and sexual lives. At first, most are unable to consider remarrying, but they eventually come to see themselves as available single women, although with special memories and, often, children.

At this point they find that society's attitude is ambivalent at best. As Zunin's assistant, Dr. Norman Barr, sums it up, "people want widows to marry, but not to date. They want them to be normal, proper women and go through the whole ritual again, but they're not supposed to have sex or pet or experience feelings meanwhile." As one woman admits, "I haven't really dealt with sex yet, but I have learned one thing. When you fight your feelings, that's when you're in trouble." So far, four of Zunin's widows have remarried.

Zunin stresses the normality of the grief cycle, and dislikes referring to his approach as "group therapy" since the widows are not sick in any pathological sense. He notes that military wives generally suffer through a shorter period of acute grief than other women because they "live with a sense of death." He hopes to see his technique used to help many more of the nearly 20,000 women widowed by the Viet Nam war.

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