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BEREAVEMENT

By: Barbara Warsetsky, LCSW

Introduction

Loss and grief are essential parts of all of our living.  How we deal with this major life event depends on many factors. Different Cultures’ have varying ways in which they experience and work though their grief. For some, rituals that are built into this process are extremely comforting and helpful.   Grieving is a normal process with several stages that most of us go through in order to heal. In her book Death and Dying, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, 1969 describes five stages of grief.  These stages can be gone through in any order.  Similarly research states that the families of the bereaved also experience many of these stages.  

The Stages of Grief

• Denial:  Feelings that the report of death must be wrong or a mistake, there is no way this could really be happening.

• Bargaining:  We want to make deals to reverse the fate and not accept what is happening.

• Anger:  Blaming self or others for the loss, also anger is an indication of a person is beginning to accept that death has occurred.

• Depression:  Feeling total despair, hopelessness, nothing seems to matter, feelings of abandonment and loneliness.

• Acceptance:  Realizing the person is not going to return and that there is nothing anyone could have done to prevent this outcome, a sense of calmness and that life has to go on for the living.

Within these stages, there is an opportunity for growth that presents itself through all of the emotional pain.  It is not as if we see the opportunity in front of us, it is more that we are most vulnerable at this time and open to see life from a new perspectives. Therapy at this time would be indicated if symptoms persist and they interfere with ones ability to return to everyday responsibilities.   Therapy is a safe place to sort out details, to be angry, to cry and express emotions that will help you through the pain of your loss.  Remembering that the pain of the loss will never go away but with time and perspective the emotional pain will lessen. 

Throughout this process one is also trying to cope and function with everyday responsibilities and some of the symptoms of Grief, (not necessarily all) that one might be experiencing include:

Emotional Responses to Grief

•  Sadness
•  Shock
•  Fear
•  Guilt
•  Despair

Behavioral Responses to Grief

•  Anxiety attacks
•  Lack of concentration
•  Poor appetite
•  Insomnia
•  Weight loss
•  Sense of loosing control
•  Numbness of feelings
•  Sensitivity to noise
•  Loss of energy
•  Shortness of breath
•  Tightness in throat
•  Withdrawal from social relationships and daily routines
•  Prolonged functional impairment

Conclusion

If symptoms do not subside in a reasonable amount of time, or one feels that their ability to cope is severely impaired than therapy can help develop such coping strategies in dealing with the grief and loss and is tailored and suited to each individual.

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Barbra Warsetsky is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She graduated form Emerson College with a BA, in Psychology and Rutgers University with a Masters in Social Work.  She has a Postgraduate Certificate in Holocaust Studies and working with Second Generation.  She has presented papers at two International Conferences, in both London and Geneva, on Incest and Related Problems. She has been a practicing psychotherapist for twenty-five years in New Jersey and in Florida, where she presently resides. Her practice includes working with Adults, Children, and Families in psychotherapy. To learn more about Ms. Warsetsky click here or she can be reached at (954) 227-2700 or (561) 347-0997.

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