Grieving Case

Grieving

How to help someone who is;

How to help someone through a difficult time and being aware of how you feel with your own grief and losses. Being attuned into what a person is feeling.

Most people think that grieving is a process and grieving is a very individual experience. Not all people go through the process the same way some take longer than others. When it becomes unbearable we all confront it in our own characteristic ways. However grief that is expressed and experienced has potential for healing that can eventually strengthen and enrich life. (Smith and Segal 2012). When confronted with a feeling as difficult to bear as grief, we may fall into the familiar rut of our oldest defenses. (Burgo). Some people think that there are 5 stages and some 7 stages. Either way there is a bunch of feeling that you have to go through and process psychologically. The feelings that you may experience are, shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression, reflection and loneliness, upward turn, reconstruction and working through, acceptance and hope, then eventually, you will start to look forward and actually plan things for the future.

The western way of experiencing death is through humor and denial. It is a way to cover up the reality, of the life that was lost. This can lead up to avoid grieving and it allows ourselves to get use to the reality in little bits, denial is the shock absorber for painful loss and crisis. Denial may lead to a lack of support from family members and friends because they think that you are handling it ok. Another example of denial would be the patient not wanting to talk about the fact he was dying and would only talk about being in remission. He then went into the hospital and refused and chemotherapy, when he went home he layed down in bed and died. His family was left with much sadness over the absence of any conversation regarding what he may have said to them before he died. Denial may last a lifetime such as when a person was in war and there is no body returned there is always hope that the person is still alive or that they will be calling on the phone. Sometime people think magically the person will be coming back or that they are just on a long trip or they are just gone away to school. This is when the head knows but the heart doesn't know yet. We all need denial to allow us time to get used to the idea that our loved one is gone forever. The awareness of death and the expectation of a transition to some other existence are shown in the preserved items found in the ground, in caves and in drawings and writing of earlier civilizations.(Jeffrey's p.5). Grief is and equal opportunity human reaction; as it affects everyone. We can also have a grief response for losses other than loss of life, this is why I think that it is so important to understand how to help people with work place changed separations, divorces, and financial insecurity are deathlike losses for many people.(Jeffery's).

There are many people in this society who do not turn their eyes away from jobs that most of us are happy to let them do--Preparing bodies for viewings, emptying bedpans, recovering drowning victims, working the emergency rooms and providing care to the dying and very ill. When a client is experiencing grief and bereavement I want to be the "exquisite