Bereavement
Bereavement is a normal process that people go through when they have suffered a major loss. While grief is typically associated with the death of a loved one, people may also experience a grief reaction to an incurable illness, the end of a significant relationship, or a major life change such as job loss. Some of the symptoms of the grieving process include sleep and appetite changes, lack of productivity at work or school, withdrawal from social contacts and family members, and crying spells.
The immediate phase of the grieving process can last up to two months. Milder symptoms can last for a year or longer. If these symptoms persist without improving, or someone is not able to return to normal functioning within a reasonable time, psychological counseling may be helpful.
Here at the Tarnow Center for Self Management our experienced clinical staff can offer individual, family and group counseling for clients of all ages who have experienced a loss. Regardless of the nature of the loss, grieving proceeds through five distinct stages (listed below). This journey isn’t linear; we don’t just move straight through. Instead, most people go back and forth between stages several times before reaching Acceptance. For many, it is often helpful to have a professional to guide and support them as they move through the grieving process.
The Five Stages of Grief
- Denial: Denial is our mind’s way of protecting you from fully experiencing a loss. Initially, it may be a numb feeling, or a state of shock. As time goes on, denial becomes more of a distortion of the truth, a way of looking at things that tells us what we want to believe. The message of Denial is, “This isn’t happening.”
- Anger: As we move into anger, we’re starting to address the reality of the situation. Anger protects us from feeling the pain by focusing our pain outward. The message of Anger is, “Who is to blame?”
- strongBargaining: Eventually, we realize that it just doesn’t matter. Anger hasn’t gotten rid of the problem, and it may have actually created some problems of its own. So now we start looking for resolution. Sometimes we bargain to prevent a certain outcome (“If you just take this away from me, I’ll…”), and at times we bargain to avoid the pain (“If I just buy this car/suit/pair of shoes, I’ll feel better.”). The message of Bargaining is, “This will make it all better.”
- Depression: But many times, it doesn’t. There are just some things that cannot be undone, and some problems that cannot be fixed. Sooner or later, we have to face that from which we’ve been running all this time: reality. But reality is hard. Reality is painful. Reality is… depressing. It’s really difficult to sit with reality for very long, and we often bounce right back into Bargaining. But when we’re able to stay with our pain long enough to work through it, we work our way to Acceptance.
- Acceptance: Acceptance is exactly that. Where Denial tells us “This isn’t happening,” Acceptance tells us, “This is happening, and we’ll get through it.” Acceptance is when we stop running away from the truth, and instead accept that truth as part of our worlds, and then look ahead to how to make the best of it.