Counselling for grief involves talking about the loss and so enables the person to come to terms with the loss over time.
A number of upsetting events, other than a death of someone close can cause grief. Events like marriage breakdown, loss of a job or learning about a terminal illness.
Grief counselling is about providing time to explore any issues or factors (both current or historical) that assist or hinder the process of adjustment that you will go through during the grieving process.
Grief is undoubtedly one of the most painful experiences we as humans have to go through. As we live our life, we go through many small losses that can assist in handling the inevitable large losses. When a loved one has been ill for a long time, we feel great sorrow when the death occurs. But when a death is sudden, our world turns upside down and we feel confused and deny the death. This is termed a complicated grief reaction, brought about because there was no time to emotionally prepare ourselves.
Grief counselling is usually conducted after a death in the family, but may also be helpful in grief-provoking situations such as death of a pet, a job loss, the diagnosis of a terminal , marriage breakdown or another reason. Grief counselling works to overcome the feelings of loss. Grief counselling can be undertaken either individually or in groups.
Who can benefit from Grief Counselling? When a person loses someone close, they will most likely have lots of attention initially from friends and family. But most people will look to move on after a few weeks, especially when the loss has no direct effect on them. The grieving person who was close to the deceased however may not be ready to "move on". In this situation grief counselling becomes most effective, especially if the death was untimely. It gives the grieving person a route to continue to deal with the loss and receive help that may not be available from the person's social network, even friends or family.
Grief counselling is especially important for those who may have had a difficult relationship with the deceased person or are socially a little isolated or had emotional issues previous to the loss.
Grief counsellors realise that grieving is a process that cannot be rushed. Counselling may also remind the person that the feelings or choices they make while grieving are quite normal and natural. The aims of grief counselling differ to counselling undertaken to change behaviour. Rather, the goal of the grief counsellor is to be "there" for the bereaved when they are most vulnerable. This is sometimes called compassioning by counsellors.
Often the grief counsellor assists the person by simply listening empathatically. Then guiding the person to find mechanisms to enable them to deal with the grief.
For further free information on grief counselling visit Stockport Counselling Service. To find a Local Counselling Service.
Posted under depression
This post was written by Tracy Mills on June 28, 2010
