Working With Bereavement

Psycho-therapist Sue Cowan-Jenssen tells us about how she helps those recovering from grief at the death of a close friend or relative.

In my role as a psychotherapist I have had first-hand experience of the 5 stages of bereavement that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identifies. Firstly, there’s denial. Secondly, there’s anger. Thirdly, she identifies a stage of bargaining or guilt. Fourthly, there is depression or hopelessness and finally comes acceptance that the person you love has died.

My experience of bereavement and working with the bereaved has confirmed that it involves a huge range of emotions and reactions - but not necessarily in a tidy order. Mourning is never a uniform process – it is a journey; and it is often confusing.

Mary came to see me a few months after the death of her 50-year-old husband from a chronic illness. She described her sense of loneliness, loss and near total disorientation. She found herself hating her friends who weren’t bereaved and then feeling incredible guilt about her anger. She then blamed herself for not loving her husband enough because she had had an affair before they got married, causing him a great deal of distress. As she descended into guilt and self-loathing she became more and more despondent and depressed.

Depression is a normal part of bereavement but some people can find themselves stuck there. There are many causes for this and of course each person’s individual history plays a part. Mary’s guilt at her earlier infidelity left her feeling she had no right to a life in the present – she felt like she didn’t deserve happiness.

A really useful question, which I will raise at some point where I think that the client might be getting stuck, is what is it that they need to remember and what is it they need to let go of. I find this a crucial question because hanging onto the ‘bad’, as a way of remembering can become a torment.

In Mary’s case she needed to remember the many times she and her husband had been truly happy together. She needed to remember how she had supported him through his long illness - no small burden to bear. She hadn’t been perfect but then who among us is?

Gradually Mary was able to think about her husband in a more positive way. She was able to remember him with love and could talk about him in an easier manner and, though sad at his passing, she could feel how much he had loved her.

Helping someone through grief who has had a difficult attachment history with insecurity and not enough love means helping them find a better sense of their own worth. It is not uncommon for someone who has had an unloving parent to become depressed when that parent dies. A frequent cause is the final loss of all hope that they will ever get the love and recognition they never had and desperately needed.

When Dan’s father died he entered a deep depression. He never felt loved by his father who was often incapacitated by drink. In fact when we looked closer at his father’s story we came to understand that he was a deeply troubled man who used alcohol to cope with his emotional problems. I asked Dan if the drunken father was the person his dad had wanted to become. Dan was clear that his father would have wanted to be loving to his son. Slowly, as he was able to make a connection to the person his dad could have been, Dan was able to feel more warmth, a better attachment and more compassion for both himself and his father. There was still sadness, but less despair.

These cases encapsulate the aim of bereavement work. I help people to conceptualise and relate to the death of the loved-one in a way that enables them to reach a stage of acceptance. The individual’s process of grieving is rarely straightforward. But through effective psycho-therapy tailored to the individual’s needs, I can help them onto the straight road to acceptance and recovery.

Sue is a UKCP-registered psycho-therapist based in North-London. To find out more about her work please visit www.suecowanjenssen.co.uk.

For more information about how to deal with bereavement visit http://www.crusebereavementcare.org.uk/.

“She hadn’t been perfect but then who among us is?”

“Depression is a normal part of bereavement but some people become terribly stuck there.”