Grief counseling encourages people to deal with loss in healthy ways.
Mental-health clinicians usually make a distinction between "grief counseling" and "grief therapy." Grief counseling refers to supporting a person through a normal, healthy grieving process, while grief therapy involves intensive work with people who have become "stuck" in the grieving process or whose grieving is complicated by trauma, mental health or substance abuse issues, or other factors that prevent the person from moving forward. There are several effective clinical approaches to grief counseling; all of these emphasize providing emotional support, following rather than leading the client, and normalizing the client's grieving experience.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: Five Stages of Grief
Ground-breaking work on grief was done by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who interviewed dying patients about their experiences and feelings. From these interviews, she pieced together a five-stage theory of grief. The five stages include shock and denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Clinicians trained in this model typically identify a client's stage of grieving and gently work to move the client through the five stages to eventual acceptance of the loss. It should be noted, however, that Dr. Kubler-Ross never implied that clients went through all of these five stages in order or that every client experienced all five stages.
Alan Wolfelt and Companioning
In the 1990's, Dr. Alan Wolfelt introduced a model for grief counseling that he called "companioning." Companioning emphasizes the clinician being open to learning from the client what the client's individual grief experience is like, and symbolically walking alongside the client in solidarity and support rather than trying to lead the client. Dr. Wolfelt states that a clinician needn't have -- and shouldn't have -- the answers to moving through grief, but should simply be a witness to and advocate of the client's own healing process.
The Empty Chair and Gestalt Therapy
People who are grieving a loss often fear that they left important things unsaid. The "Empty Chair" counseling method is one way to help the bereaved achieve a sense of closure. The counselor encourages the bereaved person to sit across from an empty chair, imagine that her loved one is in it, and say whatever she feel needs saying. He then asks the bereaved to occupy the empty chair and respond as if she were the departed loved one.
Supportive Activities
Grief counselors frequently encourage bereaved clients to engage in activities that make them feel better. The basic theory behind this is one of the cornerstones of "Solution-Focused Therapy" -- if it works, do more of it. For instance, a grief counselor might recommend regular journaling for a client who loves to write and frequent walks and hikes for a client who loves the outdoors.
Support Groups
Support groups can be an important healing catalyst after a loss. They allow a bereaved person to meet and interact with others who have suffered similar losses, to identify different paths to healing, and to accept support from others. Many bereavement counselors routinely refer clients to support groups.
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