Grief and Loss Essay

Losing both(prenominal) atomic number 53 or some(a)thing we whop is actually painful. We may drive all kinds of difficult emotions and it may heart like the sombreness provide never let up. These atomic number 18 traffic pattern reactions to a signifi arouset disadvantage. solely while at that place is no mighty or wrong mien to bemoan there argon muscular ways to cope with the pain. Grief is a natural response to vent. Its the emotional suffering we get when something or some ace we love is interpreted away. We may associate melancholy with the termination of a love one and this type of wrong does frequently cause the most intense distress. But either loss lot cause grief, including * A relationship detachment * Loss of meliorateth * Losing a job * Loss of financial stability * A miscarriage * Death of a pet * Loss of a cherished dream * A loved ones drab illness * Loss of a friendship * Loss of safety subsequently(prenominal)wards a trauma The m ore signif wadt the loss, the more intense the grief. However, re assign sur heart baffling losses can lead to grief. For example, we might beget grief after moving away from home, graduating from college, changing jobs, selling our family home, or retiring from a career we loved. Grieving is a in-person and spiritedly individual experience.How we suffer depends on many a(prenominal) grammatical constituents, including personality and coping style, feel experience, faith, and the nature of the loss. The suffer suffice takes prison term. Healing happens gradually it cant be agonistic or hurried and there is no commonplace condemnationtable for sorrow. Some masses start to feel relegate in weeks or months. For otherwises, the grieving operate is measured in years. Whatever grief experience, its important to be patient and allow the mathematical work to naturally unfold. (Bowlby 1977) In 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kbler-Ross introduced what became known as the five stages of grief. These stages of grief were based on her studies of the sense of touchs of patients face up terminal illness, scarce many heap set out generalized them to other types of controvert purport changes and losses, such as the death of a loved one or a break-up. The five stages of grief* Denial This cant be happening to me.* Anger Why is this happening? Who is to pluck?* Bargaining Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.* Depression Im too sad to do anything.* take awayation Im at peace with what happened.If we are experiencing any of these emotions spare-time activity a loss, it may suffice to know that our reaction is natural and that well heal in time. However, not eitherone who is grieving goes through all of these stages and thats okay. In fact, some people resolve their grief without departure through any of these stages. And if we do go through these stages of grief, we probably wont experience them in a neat, sequential order.(Parkes 1972) Kbler-Ross her egotism never intended for these stages to be a rigid frame run that applies to everyone who mourns. In her last book onwards her death in 2004, she said of the five stages of grief, They were never meant to support ruck up messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people bewilder, nevertheless there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our grieving is as individual as our lives. sooner of a series of stages, we might in like manner think of the grieving process as a tumbler coaster, full of ups and downs, highs and lows. Like many roller coasters, the ride tends to be rougher in the beginning, the lows may be deeper and longer.The difficult periods should receive less intense and shorter as time goes by, but it takes time to work through a loss. Even years after a loss, particularly at special til nowts such as a family wedding or the birth of a child, we may still experience a vigorous sense of grief. While loss affects people in different ways, many people experience the add uping symptoms when theyre grieving. Important thing to think of that almost anything that we experience in the early stages of grief is normal including picture like were going crazy, feeling like were in a bad dream, or questioning our religious beliefs. * Shock and scruple Right after a loss, it can be hard to accept what happened. Feeling numb, have trouble believing that the loss really happened, or even out deny the truth. If someone we love has died, we may keep expecting them to award up, even though we know theyre gone. * Sadness Profound sadness is probably the most universally experienced symptom of grief. We may have feelings of emptiness, despair, keen, or deep loneliness. We may also cry a mount or feel emotionally unstable.* Guilt We may regret or feel guilty or so things you did or didnt arrange ordo. We may also feel guilty about certain feelings (e.g. feeling shut u pd when the person died after a long, difficult illness). After a death, we may even feel guilty for not doing something to prevent the death, even if there was nothing more we could have take ine. * Anger Even if the loss was nobodys fault, we may feel angry and resentful. If we lost a loved one, we may be angry at our self, God, the doctors, or even the person who died for abandoning us. We may feel the need to blame someone for the injury that was done. * Fear A significant loss can offset a host of worries and fears. We may feel anxious, boosterless, or insecure. We may even have panic attacks. The death of a loved one can trigger fears about own mortality, of facing life without that person, or the responsibilities we now face alone. * Physical symptoms We often think of grief as a rigorously emotional process, but grief often involves physical problems, including fatigue, nausea, lowered immunity, incubus loss or weight gain, aches and pains, and insomnia.The single mo st important factor in healing from loss is having the support of other people. People arent quite often comfortable talking about their feelings under normal circumstances, its important to express them when grieving. Sharing loss makes the load of grief easier to carry. Wherever the support spots from, it is important to accept it and do not grieve alone. Its normal to feel sad, numb, or angry following a loss. But as time passes, these emotions should become less intense as we accept the loss and start to move forward. If we arent feeling better over time, or grief is getting worse, it may be a sign that grief has developed into a more serious problem, such as conglomerate grief or major opinion. The sadness of losing someone we love never goes away completely, but it shouldnt remain mall stage.If the pain of the loss is so constant and severe that it keeps us from resuming our life, we may be suffering from a condition known as complicated grief. Complicated grief is like be ing stuck in an intense duplicationct of mourning. We may have trouble accepting the death long after it has occurred or be so preoccupied with the person who died that it disrupting daily system and undermines other relationships. (Simons 1979) Symptoms of complicated grief include* Intense longing and yearning for the dead person* Intrusive thoughts or images of your loved one* Denial of the death or sense of disbelief* Imagining that your loved one is alive* peeping for the person in familiar places* Avoiding things that remind you of your loved one* extremum anger or bitterness over the loss* Feeling that life is empty or meaninglessEvery person is individual and view with grieving process differently ,however some people experience high level of distress which brings them to see the counsellor. (Stroebe,Schut & Stroebe,2005)People seeking counselling would quite often come for function with thoughts, behaviours, feelings or ability to coop. sometimes grieving person rea lizes that counselling is the way to go sometimes family or friends would recognize the symptoms and barrack counselling to the grieving person. In both cases its counsellors responsibility to help the survivor to line up to the change. there are certain principles and procedures than counsellor should follow to help invitee work through grieving process and come to a good outcome.1, Actualize the lossTalking about loss may be very difficult for guest. This can be back up by counsellor by asking appropriate questions when this happened, how this happened, who told you about it, where were you some clients would need to go over and over it in their minds before they can be fully aware that it has happened. There is not a time scale for this and counsellor will have to follow clients own pace. proponent is in this stage clients listener and can facilitate the growing sentience of the loss and its impact by encouraging to verbalize current and then(prenominal) memories of the d eceased.2, Identify and experience feelingsMany clients come to counselling as the are worried about what they are feeling. Some feelings can be very confusing and problematic such as anger ,guilt ,helplessness, loneliness, anxiety. counsels role is to ensure client that all these feelings are natural and are part of grieving process and help them to acknowledge these sometimes negative feelings. It is important not to leave client with negative feelings but to help them recover balance betwixt the negative and positive feelings as way on negativity may put client in the put on the line of complications in the bereavement and make themsuitable for medical treatment(Neimeyer 2000)3, Assist adapt to the lossTo achieve this counsellor may use problem solvent approach. What are the problems that client is facing and how can this be solved? Counsellor can help to learn effective coping skills help with self esteem if needed .Good judgement of situation is necessary as during lancin ating grief there is an increased risk of maladaptive response.4, Help find meaning in the lossThe specific ways in which people find meaning-strategies such as theres a uncanny order to the universe,she drank too much,I needed to learn something-may be less sailent than the process itself .In other words,the ability to reascribe meaning to a change world may be more significant than the specific depicted object by which that need is fulfilled.(Schwartzberg and Halgin 1991,p.245) Finding meaning in loss is one of the goals of counselling. The process can be as important as the meaning.5, ease emotional relocationBy this counsellor can help client find a new place in their own life which will help them to move forward with life. Some people dont need any encouragement but there are many who do. Especially with loss of loved ones people are tended to feel that if they will move on it will dishonour the memory of the deceased or no one will ever fill the place of lost one. Counsello r can help client to realize that this is neat to certain extend but it is all right to live and taste their own life.6, Provide time to grieveGrieving requires time and every person deal with loss differently. Client may be going backward and forward in grieving process and counsellor is there to allow as much time as client needs. Sometimes family and friends seem to the grieving person as they dont go through they keep telling me what to do etc. Counsellor can help interpret to family members that grieving person needs to accommodate to the loss. There is also a critical time periods which for grieving person is more credibly to be difficult to coop with. This would be anniversaries, birthdays ,Christmas and holidays. It is advised to make a note of this dates as grieving person would oftenneed extra support .If these critical dates come after counselling treatment has faultless it is advised to make an arrangements to contact client.7, Allow for individual differencesGrievi ng process has a wide range of behavioural responses and has strong individual differences in the intensity of reactions, pain ,length of time (Schvartzberg&Halgin,1991) Counsellor can help to explain these differences to the family as sometimes they expect everyone to grieve the same way. Of course clients ethnicity, religion, upbringing and beliefs play major role in the process and counsellor has to be familiar with these factors.8, Examine defences and coping stylesWhen rapport between client and counsellor has developed clients are more willing to address their behaviour. Some of the coping styles can be dangerous( alcohol and drug abuse) and not making adjustment to the loss. Counsellor has to be alert and inquire about this as heavy drug or alcohol use can intensify the grief and depression. As a general rule, normal grief does not warrant the use of antidepressants. While medication may relieve some of the symptoms of grief, it cannot treat the cause, which is the loss its elf. Furthermore, by numbing the pain that mustiness be worked through eventually, antidepressants delay the mourning process. Counsellor can help with active emotional coping which seems to be most effective way to deal with bereavement. This techniques includes using humour ,reframing and redefining difficult situation.9, Identify Pathology and disturbIn some cases counsellor may recognize a pathological difficulties in clients behaviour .Some people will not be able to coop and will continue to struggle. This can develop to some type of complicated grief. .In this case counsellor will have to refer client for different type of psychotherapy. Left untreated, complicated grief and depression can lead to significant emotional damage, life-threatening health problems, and even suicide. To summarize grieving process is natural reaction to the loss It is personal highly individual experience. There is impossible to set a time scale or ask when grieving process is unblemished.Bowlby( 1980) and Parkes (1972) both say that grieving is finished when a person completes the finalphase of restitution. There is a sense in which grieving can be finished when people regain an interest in life, feel more brilliant and adapt to the change. In lots of cases grief counselling is helpful but as a therapists we have to accept that not every grieving person needs counselling and for those who do need it counselling has to be customized as grief is unique to each individual ( Neimeyer,2000)ReferencesBowlby,J.(1980) Attachment and loss ,New YorkBasic BooksKubler-Ross,E.(1969) On death and dying. New YorkMacmillanNeimeyer,R.(Ed).(2001) Meaning reconstruction and experience of loss. Washington D.C American Psychological Association Parkes,C.M.(1972).BereavementStudies of grief in enceinte life.New YorkInternational University Press. Sanders,C. (1989 ) Griefthe mourning after.New York WileyWorden,W.J.(2009) Grief counselling and grief therapy.A enchiridion for the Mental Health Pr actitioner New York Springer Publishing participation