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Grief and Loss Therapy

North American culture has become distanced from death and the experience of grieving. This has resulted from our changing from an agrarian society to a society where we are immersed in technology. Society has an increasing number of people who are experiencing complicated grief responses. This is a result, in part, to an increasing number of violent deaths through mechanization, technical advances and the trend of our society towards violence.

In agrarian times people were exposed to the life cycle on the farm where they would see the seasonal life cycle of the crops and the birth and death of farm animals. They were also exposed to their elders dying and having the family wake held in the living room or parlor. Today, we are rarely exposed to death and prolonged illness in our homes. Modern medical care has been centralized and sick people are most often cared for in hospital settings. Grief and loss has become something many of us are ill-equipped to deal with.

Our society has distanced itself from the very thing that is going to happen to us all. Consequently, we are often left completely unprepared for the experience of death and the grief that accompanies it. Even more distressing, are the frequent reactions of those who should be supportive in our times of loss. As a result of their also having little exposure to death, many support people do not know what to say, and in their rush to make things better, they often inadvertently say or do the wrong things.

Grief and Loss Therapy can assist people through the grieving process by providing them with a framework to understand what they are experiencing. Additional therapeutic interventions may also serve to mitigate other reactions (e.g., anxiety) that may be further complicating the grieving process.

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