Grief & Bereavement

It was a privilege to be under the pupilage of Counseling Guru Yeo. I recalled how my older sister received his potent intervention 20 years ago and went on in life with a changed mindset to give birth to 2 lovely daughters – an unthinkable task due to fear of pain and sight of blood.

Mr Yeo in his wit and wisdom made us see grief and bereavement through his lenses. I valued his free-flow sharing of insights. To him, grief impacts us in an individualistic as well as systemic way. Grief is not time-limited. It mutates from more intense to less intense and sometimes it may never end. It can also trigger previous trauma to cause re-traumatization therefore from less intense to more intense.

Grief is effectively an experiential expression of how one copes with an attachment loss. Such experience essentially signifies one’s capacity to experience (feeling & being) and one’s choice to express such experience or not.

We can be attached to Property, Project or People. Property can be replaced, such as material worth which need not have $ value, or body parts which are tangible. Project is not tangible, such as talent/capability, hope/dream/vision/feeling (in relation to). People is irreplaceable, and it is about the hope and dream we harbour for our family.

Why are some people finding it hard to acknowledge their grief? The scripts they hold determine outcome of grief. ‘Men don’t cry.’ ‘Do not disturb the spirit.’ ‘Move on.’ Delayed grief could be due to dorminant discourse. As a therapist, I need to learn to help client understand and appreciate grief and wait with the client for a time and place when tears will flow. Loss takes on a different meaning at different stages in our life continuum. One thing is certain, as with any kind of loss, there is anger. If I am not sure what to say to a person who is depressed, the golden rule is to NOT say anything. Let him/her talk. I should not be too quick to console. I need to permit EXPRESSION of grief for ‘whatever stays inside stays in.’ Agree with the client that ‘life goes on but it will no longer be the same.’ Say things like, ‘I suppose it’s hard not to feel guilty.’ Or ‘it does seem like you are responsible for the death and that’s why you are feeling guilty.’

Client may not accept the loss but he/she has to live with it by adapting to the reality. The reality is ‘People die, relationships never.’ < To my late father: In life YOU lived for us, in death YOU live in us.> The gist is it is OK to adapt to a life of NO CLOSURE (especially in ambiguous loss). It is permissible to continue to grieve even when it’s perceived as abnormal in the eyes of the normal. My goal will be to help client draw out the strength within them and to look for the resources available to them.