OKC bombing, pandemic similar in ‘complicated bereavement’
By: Trevor Brown
Oklahoma Watch
April 26, 2021
Two people share a moment recently at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. The chairs behind them represent 168 people who died in the bombing on April 19, 1995. (Photo by Whitney Bryen/Oklahoma Watch)
Robin Gurwitch knows all too well about loss.
Gurwitch was working as a psychologist and program director at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center on April 19, 1995.
After the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, she was among the first responders to provide mental health services to victims and their families.
Now a professor at Duke University Medical Center, Gurwitch is one of the nation’s leading authorities on grieving, with a resume that includes working with victims of 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and a long list of other tragedies.