Grief and Bereavement
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Grief and Bereavement Counselling
Firstly, it is important to understand that GRIEF is not confined only to cases of bereavement!
Grief occurs whenever we experience a significant loss in our lives, including but not only the breakup of a significant relationship (romantic or otherwise), loss of a career (through redundancy or inability to continue, loss of health or mobility (including vision, hearing or a limb).
However, this article is devoted specifically to the most widely known and perhaps in some ways most painful of losses, the death of someone close to us.
Bereavement
When someone close dies, especially unexpectedly, we can be overwhelmed by a torrent of emotions including shock, sadness, anger and guilt.
It is the only loss, where all hope has been lost (in relation to any physical continuation with the deceased person). There can be no further opportunity to share any more of ourselves, our thoughts and feelings or our lives with them on a practical level.
It is difficult to look for any silver linings in such a situation, if there are any, closure may be a feature and/or perhaps in some cases that they are no longer suffering.
Grief is a Cycle
One of the things most bereaved people struggle with is how their emotions can swing back and forth through many emotions and extremes in a short period of time.
Bereavement and loss are naturally followed by a period of grieving.
It is crucial to understand that grief is not a linear process, it is a cycle and you are not losing your mind!
If you are struggling with bereavement, counselling may help, contact us now
The cycle of grief
SHOCK
The first reaction is usually one of Shock and Disbelief
DENIAL
When the shock wears off many people go through a stage of denial during which they cannot accept the reality of the loss
ANGER AND GUILT
It is common to experience anger, sometimes guilt and often both.
Many people ask Why has this happened? Why me?
It is common to wish to find blame, either in ourselves, others or even the person who has died, and this can lead to powerful feelings of anger and guilt
DESPAIR & DEPRESSION
In the first few weeks the whole situation can seem unbearable, and in the months that follow many people feel there is little purpose in life and nothing of interest in the outside world. People sometimes begin to question their own sanity, this is a common experience.
ACCEPTANCE
Eventually, people pass through a period of depression and begin to accept the loss. This usually happens with the passage of time, usually about 18 months to 2 years as people start thinking of beginning their life again.
GRIEF is a process, it is common for people to move back and forth erratically through this cycle during the process, which in the case of a close loved one usually takes 18 months to 2 years.
Around this time people often feel like getting on with their lives again, perhaps renewing old interests and taking up new pursuits. Some people feel this is disloyal to the person who has died, but the past is always part of us and is not affected by enjoying the present or planning for the future
If you are struggling with grief, counselling may help, contact us now
Hope and Comfort
I mentioned earlier that bereavement is the only loss, where all hope has been lost (in relation to any physical continuation with the deceased person).
However, that does not necessarily mean there is not a Spiritual continuation, even if you are an atheist it cannot be denied that science has proven time and again, that everything in the universe is fundamentally just energy (energy spinning very quickly) and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred from one form to another.
As Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral put it so beautifully and in such a comforting way:-
“Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well.”
If you are struggling with grief or bereavement, counselling may help, contact us now
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Copyright © 1994 – 2018 T. Roberts, Dolphin Hypnotherapy Bournemouth and Poole, Dorset. All rights reserved. – Areas we cover include, but are not limited to, the following towns and villages throughout Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire – Bournemouth, Boscombe, Southbourne, Poole, Parkstone, Branksome, Sandbanks, Westbourne, Ferndown , Christchurch, Highcliffe, New Milton, Lyndhurst, Lymington, Swanage, Studland, Wareham, Blandford, Sturminster Newton, Shaftesbury, Dorchester, Weymouth, Bridport, Merley, Wimborne, Broadstone, Corfe Mullen, Fordingbridge, Verwood, Ringwood and Salisbury.
