'Grief and Loss Essay\r'

'Losing soul or any(prenominal)thing we love is very acheful. We whitethorn obtain all kinds of rugged emotions and it whitethorn observe worry the perturbingness depart never let up. These argon popular reactions to a signifi dis behindt want. But age thither is no pay off or hurt course to bewail â€there argon sizeable slip look to cope with the distress. sorrowfulness is a inherent chemical reaction to privation. It’s the stirred up suffering we feel when mostthing or some oneness we love is taken away(predicate). We whitethorn associate wo with the dying of a love one †and this type of deviation does much wee-wee the near intense sadness. But each bolshy can ca commit tribulation, including: * A relationship withdrawal * privation of health * Losing a job * Loss of financial st susceptibility * A miscarriage * end of a pet * Loss of a cherish dream * A love one’s serious illness * Loss of a give birth it off * Loss of safety subsequently a damage The more than signifcant the expiration, the more intense the trouble. However, in metre pernicious exites can lead to grief. For example, we might experience grief after moving away from home, graduating from college, ever-changing jobs, selling our family home, or retiring from a move we love. regret is a personal and highly one-on-one experience.\r\nHow we grieve depends on umteen factors, including personality and act style, life experience, faith, and the nature of the loss. The suffer operate takes sequence. mend happens gradually; it can’t be compel or hurried †and there is no â€Å"normal” timetable for grieve. many mickle start to feel make better in weeks or months. For new(prenominal)s, the sorrow ferment is mensurable in years. Whatever grief experience, it’s meaning(a) to be patient and allow the process to indwellingly unfold. (Bowlby 1977) In 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler -Ross introduced what became k nown as the â€Å" pentad represents of grief.” These stages of grief were based on her studies of the touchs of patients approach terminal illness, only many plenty hire publicized them to other types of negative life changes and losses, such(prenominal) as the death of a love one or a break-up. The five stages of grief:\r\n* demurral: â€Å"This can’t be happening to me.”\r\n* peevishness: â€Å"Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”\r\n* Bargaining: â€Å" pull this non happen, and in return I leave alone ____.”\r\n* Depression: â€Å"I’m too sad to do anything.”\r\n* Acceptance: â€Å"I’m at peace with what happened.”\r\nIf we are experiencing any of these emotions following a loss, it whitethorn attend to to know that our reaction is natural and that we’ll heal in time. However, not everyone who is sorrow goes through all of these stages †and that’s okay. In fact, some people resolve their grief without going through any of these stages. And if we do go through these stages of grief, we probably win’t experience them in a clean-living, serial instal.(Parkes 1972) Kübler-Ross herself never intended for these stages to be a rigid framework that applies to everyone who mourns. In her last leger before her death in 2004, she said of the five stages of grief, â€Å"They were never meant to dish tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, and there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our sorrow is as several(prenominal) as our lives.” Instead of a series of stages, we might also think of the grieving process as a roller coaster, broad of ups and downs, highs and lows. Like many roller coasters, the ride tends to be rougher in the beginning, the lows may be robuster and longer.\r\nThe difficult periods should pop off less intense and shorter as time goes by, exclusively it takes time to work through a loss. charge years after a loss, especially at special take downts such as a family wedding party or the birth of a child, we may til now experience a strong genius of grief. part loss affects people in different ways, many people experience the following symptoms when they’re grieving. grievous thing to remember that almost anything that we experience in the early stages of grief is normal †including feeling the likes of we’re going crazy, feeling like we’re in a bad dream, or doubting our religious beliefs. * Shock and disbelief †Right after a loss, it can be hard to send on what happened. Feeling numb, have trouble believing that the loss really happened, or yet deny the truth. If person we love has died, we may keep expecting them to show up, even though we know they’re gone. * Sadness †incomprehensible sadness is probably the most universally experience d symptom of grief. We may have feelings of emptiness, despair, yearning, or deep loneliness. We may also cry a consider or feel emotionally unstable.\r\n* Guilt †We may regret or feel guilty active things you did or didn’t read or do. We may also feel guilty most real feelings (e.g. feeling relieved 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. * angriness †Even if the loss was nobody’s fault, we may feel fantastic 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 aban take overing us. We may feel the make to blame someone for the injustice that was done. * Fear †A solid loss can trigger a host of worries and fears. We may feel anxious, sustainerless, or insecure. We may even have panic attacks. The death of a loved one can tri gger fears about own mortality, of veneering life without that person, or the responsibilities we now face alone. * Physical symptoms †We often think of grief as a strictly emotional process, that grief often involves physical problems, including fatigue, na usea, lowered immunity, freight loss or weight gain, aches and inconvenience oneselfs, and insomnia.\r\nThe single most important factor in healing from loss is having the maintenance of other people. People aren’t sort of often comfortable talking about their feelings beneath normal circumstances, it’s important to express them when grieving. communion loss makes the load of grief easier to carry. Wherever the support come alongs from, it is important to let it and do not grieve alone. It’s 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 aren’t feeling better every place time, or grief is get worse, it may be a sign that grief has positive into a more serious problem, such as obscure grief or major(ip) depression. The sadness of losing someone we love never goes away completely, but it shouldn’t remain centre stage.\r\nIf the pain of the loss is so constant and severe that it keeps us from resuming our life, we may be suffering from a flesh known as involved grief. Complicated grief is like being stuck in an intense put up of sorrow. 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 routine and undermines other relationships. (Simons 1979) Symptoms of complicated grief include:\r\n* Intense impulse and yearning for the deceased\r\n* Intrusive thoughts or images of your loved one\r\n* Denial of the death or sense of disbelief\r\n* Imagining that your loved one is alive\r\n* meddling for the person in familiar places\r\n* Avoiding things that remind you of your loved one\r\n* Extreme anger or rancour over the loss\r\n* Feeling that life is empty or meaningless\r\nEvery person is individual and deal 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 sort of often come for dish up with thoughts, behaviours, feelings or energy to coop. sometimes grieving person realizes that counselling is the way to go sometimes family or friends would recognize the symptoms and commend counselling to the grieving person. In both cases it’s counsellors responsibility to help the survivor to correct to the change. on that point are certain principles and procedures than counsellor should follow to help thickening work through grieving process and come to a good outcome.\r\n1, Actualize the loss\r\nTalking about loss may be very difficult for client. This can be encourage by counse llor by asking enchant questions: when this happened, how this happened, who told you about it, where were you… some clients would rent to go over and over it in their minds before they can be fully aware that it has happened. thither is not a time scale for this and counsellor volition have to follow clients own pace. counseling is in this stage clients listener and can facilitate the growing sentience of the loss and its impact by encouraging to give tongue to current and past memories of the deceased.\r\n2, attain and experience feelings\r\n many another(prenominal) clients come to counselling as the are upset about what they are feeling. Some feelings can be very confusing and problematic such as anger ,guilt ,helplessness, loneliness, anxiety. Counsellor’s role is to moderate client that all these feelings are natural and are part of grieving process and help them to have it away these sometimes negative feelings. It is important not to head client with n egative feelings but to help them scratch balance between the negative and positive feelings as focusing on negativity may put client in the risk of complications in the trial and make them suitable for medical treatment(Neimeyer 2000)\r\n3, Assist adapt to the loss\r\nTo achieve this counsellor may use problem solving approach. What are the problems that client is facing and how can this be solved? Counsellor can help to film effective manage skills help with self esteem if needed .Good judgement of military position is necessary as during acute grief there is an increased risk of maladaptive response.\r\n4, Help let on meaning in the loss\r\nThe specific ways in which people find meaning-strategies such as â€Å"there’s a spiritual 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 th e specific surfeit 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.\r\n5, Facilitate emotional relocation\r\nBy this counsellor can help client find a new place in their own life which will help them to move forward with life. Some people don’t 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 stock of the deceased or no one will ever fill the place of lost one. Counsellor can help client to realize that this is true up to certain extend but it is all right to live and enjoy their own life.\r\n6, Provide time to grieve\r\nGrieving 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 s eem to the grieving person as â€Å"they don’t understand” â€Å"they keep telling me what to do” etc. Counsellor can help symbolize 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 likely to be difficult to coop with. This would be anniversaries, birthdays ,Christmas and holidays. It is certified to make a note of this dates as grieving person would often need extra support .If these critical dates come after counselling treatment has finished it is advised to make an arrangements to contact client.\r\n7, Allow for individual differences\r\nGrieving process has a wide range of behavioral 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 client’s eth nicity, religion, bringing up and beliefs play major role in the process and counsellor has to be familiar with these factors.\r\n8, Examine defences and coping styles\r\nWhen rapport between client and counsellor has developed clients are more willing to discuss their behaviour. Some of the coping styles can be dangerous( alcohol and medicate abuse) and not making adjustment to the loss. Counsellor has to be alert and inquire about this as impenetrable 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 itself. Furthermore, by numbing the pain that must 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 rede fining difficult situation.\r\n9, Identify Pathology and adjoin\r\nIn some cases counsellor may recognize a pathological difficulties in client’s behaviour .Some people will not be able to coop and will stick 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 add together grieving process is natural reaction to the loss It is personal highly individual experience. There is unrealizable to set a time scale or ask when grieving process is finished.\r\nBowlby(1980) and Parkes (1972) both say that grieving is finished when a person completes the final exam phase of restitution. There is a sense in which grieving can be finished when people regain an interest in life, feel more hopeful 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 peculiar to each individual ( Neimeyer,2000)\r\nReferences:\r\nBowlby,J.(1980) Attachment and loss ,New York: basal Books\r\nKubler-Ross,E.(1969) On death and dying. New York:Macmillan\r\nNeimeyer,R.(Ed).(2001) Meaning reconstructive memory and experience of loss. Washington D.C :American Psychological link Parkes,C.M.(1972).Bereavement:Studies of grief in adult life.New York:International University Press. Sanders,C. (1989 ) Grief:the mourning after.New York Wiley\r\nWorden,W.J.(2009) Grief counselling and grief therapy.A handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner New York: springer Publishing Company\r\n'