Loss and Bereavement
Loss and Bereavement
Loss can take many forms: are you grieving the death of a loved one or a beloved pet? Perhaps you’ve lost your job, your health is limiting you or your finances are in disarray and you don’t know how you’ll manage? Has a relationship you valued ended?
With each loss we must grieve. Bereavement can be defined as “a period of mourning after a loss”, “a time of intense grief” as well as “deprivation or loss by force”.
Why therapy?
All of us will experience some loss and bereavement in our lives, but no two of us will experience it in the same way. Our loss is unique to us and the way we grieve is unique to us too.
Reaching out for help from a therapist is the first courageous step to opening up to the pain of the loss you are grieving and letting someone else in.
Grief can leave us feeling isolated and alone. It is one of the most complex emotions to work through and we can often feel unable to cope. There is no magic formula for how long it takes to heal but therapy can help to make that process feel less lonely and help us feel more able to cope when our emotions threaten to overwhelm us.
Therapy can be a quiet, reflective space in which you can talk without judgement about your loss and sadness, but it can also be a place to work through – perhaps – your anger and resentment at that loss.
Often our challenge is not to bury our grief but to allow ourselves to experience it. Therapy gives you the forum to explore, in a safe and comforting place, what you are feeling without judgement or fear of criticism.
When we try to ignore, or suppress our grief, we can sometimes find ourselves focussing – in an unhealthy way – on other activities as a way of avoiding our feelings. This can take many forms including work, food, drink, spending, the gym, avoiding friends and countless other ways we ‘bury our head in the sand’ rather than face the feelings we must, in order to heal.
But what if all I can do is cry? Or rage? Or say nothing? What’s the point of therapy then? …
All of us will experience some loss and bereavement in our lives, but no two of us will experience it in the same way. Our loss is unique to us and the way we grieve is unique to us too.
Reaching out for help from a therapist is the first courageous step to opening up to the pain of the loss you are grieving and letting someone else in.
Grief can leave us feeling isolated and alone. It is one of the most complex emotions to work through and we can often feel unable to cope. There is no magic formula for how long it takes to heal but therapy can help to make that process feel less lonely and help us feel more able to cope when our emotions threaten to overwhelm us.
Therapy can be a quiet, reflective space in which you can talk without judgement about your loss and sadness, but it can also be a place to work through – perhaps – your anger and resentment at that loss.
Often our challenge is not to bury our grief but to allow ourselves to experience it. Therapy gives you the forum to explore, in a safe and comforting place, what you are feeling without judgement or fear of criticism.
When we try to ignore, or suppress our grief, we can sometimes find ourselves focussing – in an unhealthy way – on other activities as a way of avoiding our feelings. This can take many forms including work, food, drink, spending, the gym, avoiding friends and countless other ways we ‘bury our head in the sand’ rather than face the feelings we must, in order to heal.
but........
Clients often come in to therapy worried that they have to ‘be’ a certain way in order to be acceptable to their therapist. But there is no rule book for experiencing loss and grieving that loss. As a society, we are often expected to behave a certain way: the “stiff upper lip” or the “dignified widow” for example. But grief isn’t neat and tidy, it’s messy and unpredictable and it goes on for as long as it needs to.
Some people say that loss always leaves a scar and one way of framing that is that scars heal: they start off raw, red and painful but over time they fade, don’t hurt so much – or at all – and leave us with a reminder of the trauma we have suffered. So it is with loss if we work through it consciously and with deep respect for our own, individual process – whatever that looks like.
What difference could therapy make?
Therapy for loss and bereavement is not about forgetting; it’s about acknowledging your experience and moving forward from it.
It’s never the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ time to seek therapy for loss and bereavement. That puts a judgement on your grief which is not helpful. The time to seek therapy is when you accept that you are ready to feel the difficult and complex feelings around your loss and move forward with your journey towards healing.