Just as people experience grieving in different manners, there are also multiple ways to process our grief and express experiences of mourning. Grief therapy techniques offer varying approaches to dealing with loss. Depending on your experience, type of grief you are experiencing and whether it is traumatic grief, complicated or prolonged will determine next steps for healing and treatment. Grief represents the thoughts and feeling experienced following a loss and is a common and normal response. Grief includes an acute phase, which happens shortly after a loss which can include symptoms of sadness, longing to be with the person, thoughts and memories, anxiety and anger. If the feeling of grief do not lesson overtime this can be a sign of complicated grief. Complicated grief does not follow the normal pattern of grief and can prevent a person from healing and/or returning to usual functioning and can cause long-term distress. Mourning a loss can be an important, yet painful process of the bereavement process and can vary from person to person. The process of mourning allows a person to form long-term memories of a loved one, and includes adapting and learning new ways to carry on without a person they care deeply about.
Another form of grief which is often not discussed is disenfranchised grief which is generally grief that is not openly acknowledged, socially accepted or publicly mourned. Some examples of disenfranchised grief are loss of a loved one who is not blood related, perinatal losses, dementia, loss of safety, independence, loss of mobility or health, loss a pet, job or career, break up of long-term relationship, long-term illness and chronic pain.
We meet individuals were they are at in the grief process and allow space for all forms of grief and mourning which allows individuals to join in on the process of healing and recovery around their experience of loss.