Loss And Grief In Counselling

Loss and grief can mean a variety of different things. It can be the physical loss of a person (death), a thing, a limb. It could be the loss of something social –relationships, divorce, friendships, or it could be the loss of a job, a loss of expectations. Grief has many different stages and every individual grieves in their own way, no two people are the same when it comes to grieving, though there are particular stages most people go through, but not in any certain order. These include: shock, denial, emotional, psychological and physical symptoms, depression, blame, guilt, anger, idealisation, realism, acceptance, readjustment, personal growth.

When dealing with loss and grief, as everyone handles these differently, there are many ways this can affect a relationship, both negative and positive. For the sake of this assessment I will focus mostly on the negative impacts on relationships. The stages people go through when suffering with grief are varied, and not two people go through these stages at the same time. When both people are suffering from loss and grief, it can be hard for them to understand each other
If a counsellor is not equipped to handle the situation, a referral may be necessary. To assist with the conflict caused by loss and grief the counsellor must always stay sensitive and aware of the stages of grief, and act accordingly. Some strategies to implement could be: allowing the couple to express their emotions freely, providing information on the stages to the couple, to allow them to better understand the grief process, teaching the couple about “fair fighting” and helping them to implement this information, using metaphors in acceptable times of conflict (when a couple is failing to understand the stages of grief they’re each going through, eg), and perhaps contracting – where the couple would like to agree on what happens during particular