Why Funerals are for the Living

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Please read what two leading experts had to say about the importance of funerals to our well-being:

“Funerals are not to benefit the dead, but the living. They have a number of unparalleled therapeutic benefits. As a rite of passage, the funeral assists you in recognizing the passing of your loved one, supporting you as you start your life without the deceased, and reintegrating you back into the social group as a person whose loved one is no longer alive.”

~ How to Go on Living When Someone You Love Dies, by Therese A. Rando, Ph.D.

“When we compared the respondents who had less than the traditional funeral, i.e. those who did not view the body or had arranged immediate disposition of the remains … we found that those who had requested no viewing and/or immediate disposition of the body reported experiencing the greatest hostility following the death, the greatest increase in the consumption of alcohol, tranquilizers, and sedatives, the greatest increase in tension and anxiety, the lowest positive recall of the deceased, and, in general, particularly among the male respondents, greater problems in adjustment to the death.”

~ Robert Fulton, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota, Reporting on a large-scale study of bereaved people