Seeking Guidance: Grief Counseling

The 1969 publication of what was to become a landmark book, On Death and Dying, written by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross changed the way we looked at grief. She described five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance–stages which became the foundation of our understanding of the experience of grief for decades.

But later research has shown that we cope with grief not in linear or cyclical stages, but in a back-and-forth process which moves between the experience of sadness, anger, yearning, or crying; and the experience of feeling joy or contentment. This is almost a “safety valve”, giving the bereaved a period of rest in dealing with their grief.

Grief is, you see, work. And it seems the body intuitively knows that such hard work requires periods of rest.  This natural back-and-forth process helps us to achieve the four essential tasks in grieving:

1. To accept the reality of the loss

2. To work through to the pain of grief

3. To adjust to an environment in which the deceased is missing

4. To emotionally relocate the deceased and move on with life

But what if you get stuck? Perhaps you can’t accept this new reality; or maybe working through the pain of grief is wearing you down. That’s when a qualified grief counselor can help.