The Wisdom of Grief: Event Notes and Resources

Thanks to all who attended my recent Wisdom of Grief event! As promised, here are some notes on the concepts I covered and some further resources.

​Debunking Myths:

​Myth: There is one right, "normal" way to grieve. 
Fact: ​We all grieve in unique, individual ways. While there are ​many common ​feelings and experiences, it's still a very personal journey. Part of the wisdom of grief is that it can teach us to honor our unique personal needs and preferences. ​

Myth: There is a specific timeline for what constitutes healthy grief (e.g. if you're not over it in six months, something is wrong).
Fact: ​​The intense feelings of grief tend to gradually diminish over time, but most people continue to experience sadness and longing for a long time - even forever - after a loved one has died. Our cultural and familial expectations influence this. For example, some cultures expect widows to grieve for the rest of their lives while others are expected to eventually start dating. We need to be careful not to impose our ​own assumptions or cultural expectations on ​other people.

Myth: ​Grief happens in five neat, linear stages. 
Fact: ​​Grief does not happen in a convenient series of well-defined stages. Most people ​would say it feels more like a roller coaster than climbing a ladder. Even Kubler-Ross, famous for her five stage model, knew life was more messy and complicated than that. ​It is best to view her five stages - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance - as a useful list of experiences many individuals may share rather than some rigid checklist we mu​st follow.

Myth: Grief is a mental disorder.
Fact: ​Grief is a normal human experience that follows loss of many kinds. ​While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, lists "Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder" as a disorder for further study, it is not yet a diagnosis and remains very controversial. Some individuals who really struggle after a loss may experience a mental health crisis and need treatment, but grief itself is not a disorder and not everyone grieving needs therapy. Sometimes a person may start to have symptoms ​such as depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress, and in those cases treatment would likely be helpful.

​Some Types of Grief:

​There are a variety of types of grief that come with their own special considerations. Here are a few:

Anticipatory Grief: Occurs when a person is beginning to expect that a loved one may die, e.g. as a disease progressively worsens. ​May involve sadness, fear, intense concern for the dying person, guilt, and many other feelings common in regular grief. Can lead to an unexpected calm or lack of emotion when person passes away because they have done much grieving along the way. As care workers during COVID, we may be experiencing this as we expect many clients or patients may pass away before the pandemic ends.

​Traumatic Grief: Occurs when someone dies in an unexpected, tragic, or violent manner. Many individuals may be experiencing this during COVID since COVID itself may be experienced as a traumatic stressor. Also can happen when a perso​n is with the person who dies and experiences the death as scary (e.g. they were gasping for breath, there was ​inadequeate or no medical attention). ​May share features with post-traumatic stress, e.g. intrusive images or memories, nightmares, numbing, hypervigilance.

Disenfranchised Grief: Occurs when nobody recognizes or appreciates your feelings of grief. This often occurs when people do not recognize how important a relationship was to an individual, e.g. loss of a pet or a coworker with whom a person was very close. Care workers may be experiencing this as many of our family members may not understand why we are so sad or upset that a client or patient died.

Dual Process Model of Grief

Stroebe and Schut proposed two processes involved in grieving: loss-oriented and restoration-oriented coping.

Loss oriented coping occurs when you are focused on thinking and feeling about the loss. You might be feeling sad, loneliness, or angry, and having memories about their life. 

Restoration oriented coping occurs when you do things that help you move forward in life and distract yourself from grief. The break from intense emotion, and the focus on rebuilding, can b​e an important counterbalance to the intense emotionality of loss oriented coping.

Some of us may notice we have a tendency to hang out more in one area than the other, but most of us will move back and forth between these two ​approaches over time.

​Four Rs of G​rief

​In our workshop, I shared three Rs of grief. Since then, I've ​decided to add a fourth! The four Rs are Routines, Rituals, Remembrance, and Restoration. I have blogged about each one in depth here.

Some Good Books on Grief:

• ​Grieving: A Beginners Guide (J McCormack)
• It's Okay that You're Not Okay: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture that Doesn't Understand ​(Devine)
• The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us about Life after Loss (Bonanno)
• Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief (Cacciatore)

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