Making Progress

Just this week, I had a couple of clients (unrealted), wondering how do you let go of someone? They had both suffered immeasurable loss of a loved one. As we processed their particular situation, it further solidified my belief that the longest distance between two points can be the mind and the heart. Sometimes as we experience grief, your mind can tell you things and your heart either denies it or refuses to 'hear' it. I have come to experience grief in many different scenarios and have heard many clients try to comfort themselves with information that is not true. For example, a person who loses their mother, imagines that they have not spoken to their mother because their mother is traveling and there is no phone where she is and will call when she is available. This is a client who clearly rationalizes that they "understand" their mother is deceased, but have a difficult time believing it. Hence my assessment of the "longest distance between two points".
Another point that is often mentioned during the therapy process is "how do I let them go?" I can always sense the pain behind this comment, and that is what I address first. Sometimes it's not about "letting go", often times in the beginning of the therapy process it's about being heard. So often, after a loss, the rest of the world "goes on" and the survivor seems left alone to deal with the loss. Often fearing the burdening of others that they are "stuck" or not being ready to "move on". Having a professional help with the process of listening to the pain, the grief, is very necessary.
I help my clients understand that it's OK exactly where they are and allow them the opportunity feel the pain in a safe environment.
As we move through the process, (the on going process of therapy), we explore the client's ability to define a new "normal" for them and if possible a new understanding that instead of "letting go" we can "let it be".

When People Don't Ask "How are you doing" after a loss...

Most recently a client had family visiting from another state. She was anticipating that they would ask her how she was managing since the loss of her child. She was expecting that they would bring up the topic. Unbeknownst to her, she found that her husband had advised their visitors not to bring up the issue of the deceased child. My client was upset and felt that she would have liked her family to inquire about the child. I validated that this would have been an important acknowlegement of the former existence of her child.

Most often people don't know how to handle a situation like this; I believe, in this case, the family may have felt that they didn't want to make the mom cry, so they didn't bring it up (and also at the advice of the husband). But I've seen this in other situations as well. I think there is a fear of how to handle someone's grief. What if they start crying? What to do if the person seems extremely hurt? It's true, people don't know what to say. I think we forget that "being present" and allowing the grieving person to feel their loss in our presence is huge. We don't need to say anything, because the reality is, that there isn't anything on this earth that we could possibly say to make the hurt "go away". Sometimes it is just about being present. We can't fix it. We can't wish it away. So how about just being present. Bringing up the issue about a deceased one isn't all of the sudden going to remind the mourner that "oh by the way, had you forgotten that you lost someone?" Really think about it. A simple inquiry such as "how are you holding up"? may allow the flood gates to open, but know that it's not that you caused the pain, you were just the opportunity to release it. The pain is there, you didn't cause it. Sometimes the most important thing I do as a therapist is allow this opportunity to happen in a safe environment. I know as a therapist I can't "fix it", but I can be present, in the moment to allow my client to feel and express their pain and acknowledge their loss. It is opening the door to healing.

When you're angry with God (grief related)

One of the major issues some of my clients seem to have is allowing themselves to be angry with God, when they have experienced a loss. It's is understandable when the client begins to express their anger that they would naturally bring up the fact that they are angry with God. As we begin to process their grief, many of my clients are looking for "permission" to express anger towards God. I don't claim to be "Christian" counselor, however, when the client wants to explore spiritual issues, I can accomodate. I have often felt the pain the client feels when expressing their grief about the loss of their loved one. It is common to have pent up anger, because most of us were brought up with the notion that we cannot and should not be angry with God or we should not express anger towards God. Why not? I have often given "permission" to clients to verbalize such anger. A client once taught me what she heard in a pastor's eulogy. In the case of someone with cancer, the pastor explained that God doesn't take a love one away, cancer takes your loved one, God takes them away from cancer. With that single perspective I have grown more in tune with the grief process. How important it is to "blame" someone or something. It's that process that Kubler-Ross, address in the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining,Depression and Acceptance (not in any particular order). Each stage has its own dimension and dynamics. All stages are equally important, but the one that I see that people have the most trouble with is the Anger part. I always want to make this aspect of the grief process more "mainstream" for lack of a better word. I believe that Anger gets such a bad rap, there really isn't anything wrong with anger, it's how it's expressed that people have a problem with; therefore it is "bad". As long as it doesn't hurt you, a loved one or property, I'm thinking, it's ok. It's ok to scream at God, it's ok to say that you're angry with God. I think as long as God is "perfect" and all knowing, we are like small children with our parents when we get angry and don't get what we want. Our parents don't hate us if we say we are angry with them, well guess what? God doesn't either.
Every stage of the grief process is important and there are many ways to facilitate each step and processing our feelings, thoughts with a therapist is strongly encouraged.