Grief is a natural reaction to the loss of someone or something important to you. During periods of grief, you may experience feelings such as sadness, loneliness, and loss of interest in life. The reasons can be very different: the death of a loved one, parting with a loved one, job loss, serious illness, and even a change of residence.

Everyone mourns in their own way. But if you are aware of your emotions, take care of yourself, and seek support, you can bounce back pretty quickly.

Stages of grief

In trying to come to terms with the loss, you gradually go through several periods. Most likely, you will not be able to control this process, but try to become aware of your feelings and find out the reason for their appearance. Doctors distinguish five stages of grief.

Negation

When you first hear about loss, the first thing that comes to mind is: "It Can't Be". You may feel shock or even numbness.

Denial is a common defense mechanism that prevents the immediate shock of loss by suppressing your emotions. Thus, we are trying to isolate ourselves from the facts. During this stage, there may also be a feeling that life is meaningless and nothing else has value. For most people experiencing grief, this stage is a temporary reaction that gets us through the first wave of pain.

Anger

When reality can no longer be denied, you face the pain of your loss. You may feel frustrated and helpless. Later these feelings are transformed into anger. Usually it is directed at other people, higher powers or life in general. Being angry at a loved one who died and left you alone is also natural.

Bargaining

The normal response to feelings of helplessness and vulnerability is often to regain control of the situation with a series of affirmations. "If only", for example:

• If only we had sought medical help sooner...
• If only we'd gone to another doctor...
• If only we could stay at home...

This is an attempt to bargain. Often, people try to make a deal with God or some other higher power in an attempt to delay the inevitable severe pain.

Often this stage is accompanied by a heightened sense of guilt. You begin to believe that you could do something to save your loved one.

Depression

There are two types that are associated with grief. The first one is response to the practical consequences of the loss. This type of depression is accompanied by sadness and regret. You worry about costs and burial. There is regret and guilt that you spend so much time on grief, instead of devoting it to living loved ones. This phase can be facilitated by the simple participation of relatives and friends. Sometimes, financial assistance and a few kind words can greatly alleviate the condition.

The second type of depression deeper and perhaps more private: you withdraw into yourself, and prepare to part and say goodbye to your loved one.

Adoption

In the last stage of grief, you accept the reality of your loss. Nothing can be changed. Although you are still sad, you can start to move on and return to your daily routine.

Each person goes through these phases in their own way. You can go from one to another or skip one or more stages altogether. Reminders of your loss, such as a death anniversary or a familiar song, can trigger the stages to repeat.

How do you know if you've been grieving for too long?

There is no "normal" period for grieving. The process depends on a number of factors such as character, age, beliefs and support of others. The type of loss also matters. For example, chances are that you will experience the sudden death of a loved one longer and harder than, say, the end of a romantic relationship.

Over time, the sadness will subside. You will begin to feel happiness and joy, which will gradually replace sadness. After a while, you will return to your daily life.

Do you need professional help?

Sometimes grief does not go away for too long. You may not be able to accept the loss on your own. In this case, you may need professional help. Talk to your doctor if you experience any of the following:

• Trouble performing daily tasks, such as working and cleaning the house
• Feeling depressed
• Thoughts of suicide or self-harm
• Inability to stop blaming yourself

The therapist will help you become aware of your emotions. It can also teach you how to deal with difficulties and grief. If you have depression, your doctor may prescribe medications to help you feel better.

When you are in intense emotional pain, it may be tempting to try to distract yourself with drugs, alcohol, food, or even work. But be careful. All of this is only temporary relief and will not help you recover faster or feel better in the long run. In fact, they can lead to addiction, depression, anxiety, or even an emotional breakdown.

Instead of this try the following ways:

• Give yourself time. Accept your feelings and know that grieving is a process that takes time.
• Talk to others. Spend time with friends and family. Do not isolate yourself from society.
• Take care of yourself. Get regular exercise, eat well, and get enough sleep to stay healthy and energized.
• Get back to your hobbies. Get back to activities that bring you joy.
• Join a support group. Talk to people who are experiencing or have experienced similar feelings. This will help you not feel so alone and helpless.

AT The article details the main steps that a person goes through in the process of experiencing grief. Psychological techniques and techniques will be presented in facilitating this process

Hello,

dear readers and guests my blog!

Unfortunately, it happens that in our life we ​​are faced with very difficult and tragic situations.

One of those is a person close to us and a loved one.

The grief that consumes us in this is hardly bearable and requires special attention.

But often a grieving person, without proper support and help.

And it happens even worse: relatives, not knowing it, increase his suffering with their advice and wrong behavior.

This is because many do not really know how to help a loved one survive grief without serious consequences and upheavals.

And how to psychologically competently support the grieving.

In addition, many do not know how to overcome grief on their own in such situations.

With this article, I open a series of publications on this topic.

As the title suggests, this post is about the stages of experiencing loss.

The next two articles will focus on how to help yourself and loved ones overcome this.

They will present exercises and psychological techniques that alleviate mental pain.

Let's first define what...

grief is a very difficult suffering ania, painful experience of misfortune and misfortune caused by the loss of a loved one or the loss of something valuable and important

Grief is not a fleeting phenomenon. This is a complex and multifaceted psychological process that covers the entire personality of a person and his close environment.

Mourning is the process of experiencing grief. It is divided into several stages or stages.

Each of them has its own characteristics and characteristics.

The severity of these signs, as well as the depth of grief and grief, largely depend on the characteristics of a person’s personality, on his strength and level of psychological health.

And also from the sensitivity and timely support of others.

Which is often not enough, because relatives do not own the necessary ones.

Grief experience

and its main stages

Let us note in advance two important points :

1. Experiencing loss is not a linear process.A person can again and again return to the previously passed stages, or, bypassing one or two at once, move on to the next. Moreover, the stages can be included in one another, intersect, and also change places.
2. Hence, this and similar schemes for structuring the process of experiencing loss are just models. In reality, everything is much more complicated.

It's just easier to understand grief that way. And his understanding allows you to experience it more efficiently and faster and.

So…,

1. Stage of denial or "It can't be!"

It starts from the moment when a person learned about a tragic event. The message of death, even if a person is prepared for it, is very unexpected and.

This stage lasts about 10 days on average.

The person seems to be in a daze.

Feelings are dulled, movements become constrained, difficult and superficial.

A grieving person often looks detached and detached, but then such states are suddenly replaced by strong and intense emotions.

For many people, at this stage of mourning, what is happening seems unreal, they seem to move away from it and switch off from the present moment.

This condition is usually considered as a psychological defense.

The mourner is not able to accept what happened immediately in its entirety. The soul can accept grief only bit by bit, protected for a while by denial and numbness.

The death of a loved one breaks the “thread connecting the days”, interrupts the more or less calm course of events.

She divides the world and life into "before" and "after" the tragic event.

For many people, this makes a very difficult impression.

In fact, this is a mental (psychological) trauma.

At this time, a person is not able to live in the present. He is still mentally in the past. With a loved one who left him.

To gain a foothold in the present, resigned to the loss, and he has yet to start.

In the meantime, he is in a daze and lives in the past, because it has not yet become a memory. It is very real to him.

♦

2. Stage of search and hope

The experience of grief at this stage is associated with an unconscious expectation of a miracle. The mourner unrealistically seeks to return the deceased. Without realizing that, he expects that everything will return and get better.

Often he feels the presence of the deceased in the house.

Can catch a glimpse of him on the street, hear his voice.

This is not a pathology - these are, in principle, normal psychological phenomena. After all, for loved ones, a deceased person still subjectively remains alive.

As a rule, this stage lasts from 7 to 14 days. But the phenomena peculiar to it can be woven into the previous and subsequent stages.

3. Stage of anger and resentment

The mourner still cannot come to terms with the loss. But at this time, a burning sense of injustice begins to torment him.

The main questions he asks himself time after time are:

• Why did this happen to him?
• Why him and not someone else?
• Why such injustice?
• Who is responsible for all this?

In search of answers, a person can blame himself, relatives, doctors, friends, relatives for what happened.

Although he may realize that these accusations are unfair.

But grief makes a person biased.

Often such biased and emotionally charged accusations provoke

Between relatives and friends.

The mourner can also experience injustice in relation to himself, silently asking: “Why did this suffering fall to my lot?”.

This stage lasts from one to two weeks. And its elements can be woven into the previous and subsequent periods of mourning.

4. Stage of guilt and dispute with fate

At this stage, the guilt can be so strong that the person begins to blame himself.

For example, he may think that if he treated the deceased differently, behaved differently with him, then everything would be fine. If he did / did not do this or that, then everything would not be as it is.

The mourner may be haunted by the obsessive thought: “Ah! If now it was possible to return everything, then, of course, I would be completely different!

And in his fantasies it really happens.

He can imagine himself in the past and act as he should in order to prevent this tragedy.

5. Stage of despair and depression

Here suffering reaches its peak, this is the stage of especially strong mental pain.

This happens because a person reaches a more or less complete and deep awareness of the tragedy of the event.

At this stage, the destruction of the life order in connection with the death of a loved one is realized with particular acuteness.

Mourning reaches its peak of intensity.

Again, detachment, apathy, depression appear.

A person feels the loss of the meaning of life, can experience his own worthlessness and uselessness.

He can cry a lot, complain about his fate, or he can withdraw and not talk to anyone at all.

At this stage, various bodily dysfunctions may appear: loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, muscle weakness, exacerbation of chronic diseases, etc.

Some begin to abuse alcohol, drugs, and drugs.

Many people have obsessive thoughts and feelings.

They can not concentrate on everyday affairs, lose interest in what is happening.

Most mourners experience guilt, despair, acute loneliness, helplessness, anger, anger, and aggression.

In especially acute cases, there are thoughts of suicide and internal urges to it.

During this time, the mourner may almost constantly think of the deceased.

The effect of his idealization is formed: all memories of bad traits and habits practically disappear, and only merits and positive traits come to the fore.

At this time, the mourner seems to split in two: externally, he can quite successfully engage in everyday and professional affairs, but internally, i.e. subjectively, he is next to the deceased.

He thinks of him, talks to him, mourns for him.

Past and present go hand in hand at this time.

But then the past breaks through the veil of the present and again plunges the mourner into the whirlpools of grief.

Somewhere at the end of this period, the subjective and false feelings that the deceased is alive begin to be replaced by memories of him.

The past ceases to be a reality, it becomes a memory, and will get rid of the present.

This stage lasts about a month.

If it drags on, then it is better to contact.

Otherwise, a person may “get stuck” in a serious condition for a long time, which will negatively affect him.

6. Stage of humility and acceptance

During this period, a person begins to perceive the loss of a loved one as an inevitable reality.

The experience of loss begins to be associated with its deep and complete awareness and acceptance.

The emotional coloring of memories of the deceased gradually becomes less intense.

Feelings of despair and hopelessness are gradually replaced by less acute and less strong emotions -.

7. Stage of reorganization and return to life

Life is slowly returning to normal.

During this period, a person is almost completely restored, returns to everyday and professional activities.

He begins to live more and more not in memories, but in the present.

The deceased ceases to be the center of his experiences.

As a rule, sleep improves, appetite improves, mood improves.

A person begins to rebuild plans for life, in which there is no longer a dead person.

However, grief from time to time still breaks into a new life. It also reminds of pain and despair, for example, on the eve of some significant dates, holidays and events.

As a rule, this stage lasts 8-12 months.

And if the process of mourning went well, then after this period it went back to its usual track.

So...,

The experience of grief, mourning for a dead person is not an easy and lengthy process.

Requiring from the grieving and loved ones great, and sometimes beyond the bounds of effort

It is not always possible to overcome pain and despair on your own and return to life.

Feel free to contact

This allows you to go through all the stages of mourning faster and more efficiently, feel relief and start living anew.

And in the next article, we will take a closer look at how to help a loved one overcome grief, speed up the experience of loss, and begin to enjoy life again.

This article

That's all.

I look forward to your comments and feedback!

© Sincerely, Denis Kryukov

Psychologist in Chita

Read along with this article:

Stages of grief

1. Shock and numbness.

The first stage is denial associated with confusion. The psychological defense mechanism actively rejects what has happened. At the first stage, the emotional shock is accompanied by an attempt to deny the reality of the situation. A shock reaction sometimes manifests itself in the sudden disappearance of feelings, "cooling", as if feelings fall somewhere deeper. This happens even if the death of a loved one was not sudden, but was expected for a long time.

The mourner may think that everything that happened is a nightmare, nothing more.

Duration - from a few seconds to several weeks, on average, by the 7-9th day, gradually changing to another picture. It is characterized by loss of appetite and sexual desire, muscle weakness, little or complete immobility, which are sometimes replaced by minutes of fussy activity, amimicity, depersonalization phenomena (“It can’t be!”, “It didn’t happen to me!”), A feeling of unreality of what is happening. Loss denial can range from mild distress to severe psychotic forms, where the person spends several days in an apartment with the deceased before noticing that the deceased has died.

A more common and less pathological form of manifestation of denial has been called mummification. In such cases, a person keeps everything as it was with the deceased, in order to be ready for his return all the time. For example, parents keep the rooms of dead children. According to V.Yu. Sidorova, this is normal if it does not last long, thus a kind of “buffer” is created, which should soften the most difficult stage of experiencing and adapting to the loss. But if such behavior drags on for years, the experience of grief stops and the person refuses to acknowledge the changes that have occurred in his life, “keeping everything as it was” and not moving from his place in his mourning, this is a manifestation of denial.

Another way people avoid the reality of loss is by denying the significance of the loss. In this case, they say things like "we weren't close," "He was a bad dad," or "I don't miss him." Sometimes people hastily remove anything that might remind them of the object of loss, thus exhibiting the opposite behavior of mummification. Bereaved individuals protect themselves from coming face to face with the reality of loss and are at risk of developing pathological grief reactions.

Another manifestation of denial is "selective forgetting", in this case a person forgets something related to the object of loss.

The third way to avoid awareness of the loss is to deny the irreversibility of the loss. This is when, after the death of a child, parents console each other - "we will have other children and everything will be fine." It is understood that we will give birth to a dead child again, and everything will be as it was.

Numbness is the most noticeable feature of this condition. The mourner is constrained, tense. His breathing is difficult, irregular, a frequent desire to take a deep breath leads to intermittent, convulsive (like steps) incomplete inspiration.

Often, outward calmness, the inability to cry are often regarded by people around as selfishness and cause reproaches. Such experiences can suddenly give way to an acute reactive state.

A feeling of unreality of what is happening, mental numbness, insensitivity, deafness appears in the human mind.

How to explain all these phenomena? Usually, the shock reaction complex is interpreted as a defensive denial of the fact or meaning of death, preventing the mourner from confronting the loss in its entirety at once.

Assistance at this stage consists in silent accompaniment of a person, establishing tactile contact that helps a person to cry, i.e. “move” to the next stage of living the process of mourning and loss, verbalizing his inner experiences.

In my opinion, the longer this period lasts, the more severe the consequences.

2. Phase of acute grief.

After the first reaction to the death of a loved one - shock, denial, anger, there is an awareness of the loss and humility with it. This is the phase of search or despair, which lasts from three days to 6-7 weeks (the same 40 days of mourning). It is considered the most painful phase, since it is necessary to accept the loss as a reality, to say “yes” to life in an already changed life.

The picture of acute grief is very similar in different people. Common to all is the unrealistic desire to return the lost and the denial of not so much the fact of death as the permanence of loss. There are periodic attacks of physical suffering lasting from twenty minutes to one hour, spasms in the throat, fits of choking with rapid breathing, a constant need to breathe, a feeling of emptiness in the abdomen, loss of muscle strength and intense subjective suffering, described as tension or mental pain. State of acute anxiety, insomnia, amnesia, withdrawal reaction, numbness; somatic symptoms appear. Common to all are complaints of loss of strength and exhaustion: “it is almost impossible to climb stairs”, “everything that I lift seems so heavy”, “from the slightest effort I feel completely exhausted”.

At this time, it can be difficult for a person to keep his attention in the outside world. There may be some changes in consciousness. Common to all is a slight sense of unreality, a feeling of increasing emotional distance separating the mourner from other people (sometimes they look ghostly or seem small). Reality is, as it were, covered with a transparent muslin, a veil, through which the sensations of the presence of the deceased break through quite often.

A person who has suffered a loss tries to find evidence in the events preceding death that he did not do what he could for the deceased, he accuses himself of inattention and exaggerates the significance of his slightest missteps, for this reason many are overcome by guilt.

Often there is such an obsessive phenomenon as - "if". “If he were alive…”, “If I didn’t send him to such and such a school, then…”. Then comes the chain of events: “he wouldn’t get sick and wouldn’t die…”. Constantly there is a study of one's guilt, although objectively this guilt is not there. Where does this feeling come from?

According to F. Vasilyuk, in Western psychotherapy, guilt is treated as a symptom of grief, which must be quickly eliminated. This shows the desire to comfort a person. “The mourner does not believe in this, he sincerely believes that he is guilty. So we have to accept this illusion, this feeling of guilt as a reality. That is, we must take the position of the grieving and not dissuade him that he is not to blame.

In addition, a person who has lost a loved one often has a loss of warmth in relations with other people, a tendency to talk to them with irritation and anger, a desire not to be disturbed at all, and all this persists, despite the increased efforts of friends and relatives to support with him friendly relations.

These feelings of hostility, surprising and inexplicable for the people themselves, greatly disturb them and are taken as signs of the coming madness. Patients try to contain their hostility, and as a result they often develop an artificial, forced manner of communication.

Freud called the process of adapting to adversity the "work" of mourning. Modern researchers characterize the "work of mourning" as a cognitive process that includes changing thoughts about the deceased. This process is not some kind of inadequate reaction, from which a person must be protected, from a humanistic point of view it is acceptable and necessary. This refers to a very heavy mental load that makes you suffer. The consultant is able to deliver relief, but his intervention is not always appropriate. Grief cannot be suspended, it must continue for as long as necessary.

3. Stage of obsession.

The third phase of acute grief is “residual shocks”, lasting up to 6-7 weeks from the moment of the tragic event. According to others, this period can last a year. The metaphor "residual shocks" is taken from the earthquake in Armenia. Otherwise, this phase is called a period of despair, suffering and disorganization and - not very accurately - a period of reactive depression.

Preserved, and at first may even intensify, various bodily reactions - labored shortened breathing, asthenia, muscle weakness, loss of energy, a feeling of heaviness of any action; feeling of emptiness in the stomach, tightness in the chest, lump in the throat; increased sensitivity to odors; decreased or unusual increase in appetite, sexual dysfunction. There are explosive reactions, emotional lability, constant arousal, sleep disturbance.

This is the period of greatest suffering, acute mental pain. There are many difficult, sometimes strange and frightening feelings and thoughts. These are feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness, despair, a feeling of abandonment, loneliness, anger, guilt, fear and anxiety, helplessness. Unusual preoccupation with the image of the deceased and his idealization are typical - emphasizing extraordinary virtues, avoiding memories of bad features and deeds. For the first time, the New Year is celebrated "without it"; vacation without it… For the first time, the usual cycle of life is broken. These are short-term, but very painful situations.

Grief leaves its mark on relationships with others. Here there may be a loss of warmth, irritability, a desire to retire. Daily activities change. It can be difficult for a person to concentrate on what he is doing, it is difficult to bring the matter to the end, and a complexly organized activity may become completely inaccessible for some time. Sometimes there is an unconscious identification with the deceased, manifested in involuntary imitation of his gait, gestures, facial expressions.

The loss of a loved one is the most difficult event affecting all aspects of life, all levels of a person's bodily, mental and social existence. Grief is unique, it depends on a one-of-a-kind relationship with him, on the specific circumstances of life and death, on the whole unique picture of mutual plans and hopes, insults and joys, deeds and memories.

4. The stage of working out the problem.

During this period, the most important and difficult emotional events for a person occur: understanding, awareness of the causes of trauma and grief, mourning the loss. The peculiar motto of this stage is “forgive and say goodbye”, the last “farewell” is said.

The attitude toward the loss of an object depends decisively on the nature of the lost relationship and on the level of development of the subject's personality. The methods and mechanisms used in the situation of loss, and its consequences, are different depending on the proportion of functional and individual elements of the object relationship included in the lost relationship.

At this phase, life gets back on track, sleep, appetite, professional activity are restored, the object of loss ceases to be the main focus of life. The experience of grief is no longer a leading activity, it proceeds in the form of frequent at first, and then more rare separate shocks, such as occur after the main earthquake. Such residual attacks of grief can be as acute as in the previous phase, and subjectively perceived as even more acute against the background of normal existence. The reason for them is most often some dates, traditional events (“spring for the first time without him”) or events of everyday life (“offended, there is no one to complain to”, “a letter came in his name”).

The fourth phase, as a rule, lasts for a year: during this time, almost all ordinary life events occur and then begin to repeat themselves. The death anniversary is the last date in this series. Perhaps it is no coincidence that most cultures and religions set aside one year for mourning.

During this period, the loss gradually enters into life. A person has to solve many new tasks related to material and social changes, and these practical tasks are intertwined with the experience itself. He very often compares his actions with the moral standards of the deceased, with his expectations, with "what he would say." The mother believes that she has no right to take care of her appearance, as before, before the death of her daughter, since the deceased daughter cannot do the same. But gradually more and more memories appear, freed from pain, guilt, resentment, abandonment.

If this phase does not pass successfully, then the grief becomes chronic. Sometimes it is a neurotic experience, sometimes it is a dedication of one's life to selfless service, charity.

5. Finishing the emotional work of grief.

The work is considered to be coming to an end when the patient gains hope and the ability to plan for the future.

The normal experience of grief that we are describing enters its last phase, “completion,” about a year later. Here, the mourner sometimes has to overcome some cultural barriers that make the act of completion difficult (for example, the notion that the duration of grief is a measure of our love for the deceased).

The meaning and task of the work of grief in this phase is to ensure that the image of the deceased takes its permanent place in the ongoing semantic whole of my life (it can, for example, become a symbol of kindness) and be fixed in the timeless, value dimension of being.

With the end of the “work of grief”, adaptation to the reality of what happened takes place, and mental pain decreases. During the last stage of experiencing the loss of a person, more and more begin to occupy the people around him and new events. The dependence on loss decreases, but this does not mean forgetfulness.

It can be said that in the case of experiencing a loss, trials not only bring mental pain and suffering, but also, as it were, purify the soul, contribute to a person’s personal growth, open up new aspects of life for him, enrich him with life experience for possible transmission to his relatives in the future.

The process of mourning can be singled out as a separate item, since much attention is paid to it. It is usually believed that in this case, the subject of the loss must perform certain psychological tasks.

Burning process.

Is it necessary to grieve? Do sadness and mental suffering serve any useful function?

Mental anguish, as the brightest component of mourning, is presented as a process rather than a state. A person is faced with the question of identity again, the answer to which comes not as an instantaneous act, but after a certain time in the context of human relations.

Many experts question the wisdom of separating certain phases in the process of mourning, as this may encourage people to mourn according to a prescribed pattern.

Of course, the intensity and duration of grief varies from person to person. It all depends on the nature of the relationship with the lost person, on the severity of guilt, on the length of the mourning period in a particular culture. In addition, some factors can contribute to the restoration of a normal state. For example, in the event of a prolonged illness or incapacity of the deceased, his relatives have the opportunity to prepare themselves for his death. It is likely that they are experiencing anticipatory grief. It is even possible that in such a situation, feelings of loss, guilt, or missed opportunities are discussed with the dying person. Anticipatory grief, however, does not eliminate grief after the death of a loved one. It may not even make him weaker. But still, in the case of a long-term illness of the deceased, his death is not so difficult for those around him, because they had the opportunity to prepare for it, and it is easier for them to cope with their grief.

The Kubler-Ross (1969) model is often used to describe the mourning process. It involves the alternation of stages of denial, anger, compromise, depression, adaptation. It is believed that a normal grief reaction can last up to a year.

The normal process of mourning sometimes develops into a chronic crisis called pathological mourning. According to Freud, mourning becomes pathological when the "work of mourning" is unsuccessful or incomplete. There are several types of pathological grief:

"Blocking" emotions to avoid intensifying the grieving process.

Transformation of grief into identification with the dead person. In this case, there is a refusal of any activity that can divert attention from thoughts about the deceased.

Stretching the process of mourning in time with exacerbations, for example, on the days of the anniversaries of death.

An overly acute sense of guilt, accompanied by a need to punish oneself. Sometimes such punishment is realized through suicide.

A typical manifestation of grief is longing for a lost object. A person who has experienced a loss wants to return what was lost. Usually this irrational desire is not sufficiently realized, which makes it even deeper. The counselor should understand the symbolic nature of longing. There is no need to resist the symbolic efforts of the mourner, because in this way he tries to overcome the loss. On the other hand, the reaction of grief is exaggerated, and then a cult of the lost object is created. In the case of pathological grief, the help of a psychotherapist is needed.

In the process of mourning, bitterness inevitably sets in. The bereaved person tends to blame someone for what happened. A widow may blame her dead husband for leaving her, or God for not listening to her prayers. Doctors and other people are accused who are capable of actually or only in the imagination of the sufferer to prevent the situation that has arisen. It's about real anger. If it remains inside a person, it “feeds” depression. Therefore, the consultant should not discuss with the client and not correct his anger, but help it pour out. Only in this case will the probability of its discharge on random objects decrease.

During mourning, they experience a significant change in identity, for example, a sharp change in self-image of the implementation of the marital role. Therefore, an important component of the "work of grief" is to learn a new look at yourself, the search for a new identity.

Rituals are very important in mourning. The mourner needs them like air and water. It is psychologically essential to have a public and sanctioned way of expressing complex and deep feelings of grief.

The "work of mourning" is sometimes hindered or made more difficult by sympathetic people who do not understand the importance of gradually moving out of adversity. The difficult spiritual process of separation from the object of loss takes place in the subjective world of the grieving, and the interference of others in it is inappropriate. From the point of view of R. Kociunas, the consultant should not drown out the process of grief. If he destroys the psychological protection of the client, he will not be able to provide effective assistance. The client needs defense mechanisms, especially in the early stages of mourning, when they are not ready to accept the loss and think realistically about it. In conditions of rationality deficiency, protective mechanisms are activated. In the process of mourning, their role is functional and comes down to buying time and re-evaluating themselves and the world around them. Therefore, the counselor must allow the client to use denial and other psychological defense mechanisms.

With the end of the "work of grief" there is an adaptation to the reality of unhappiness, and mental pain decreases.

The bereaved person begins to be occupied with new people and events. The desire to connect with the object of loss disappears, dependence on it decreases. In a sense, we can say that the process of mourning is a slow weakening of the connection with the object of loss. This does not mean oblivion, it's just that the departed person no longer appears in the physical sense, but integrates into the inner world. The issue of relations with him is now resolved in a symbolic way - the departed with his inconspicuous presence in the soul of the bereaved helps him in life. Thus the sense of identity is successfully modified.

During the period of loss, suffering is alleviated by the presence of relatives and friends, and it is not their effective help that is essential, but easy accessibility during several weeks, when grief is most intense. The bereaved should not be left alone, but he should not be “overloaded” with care - great grief is overcome only with time. A grieving person needs constant but not intrusive visits and good listeners.

The role of the listener in some cases can be performed by a consultant. Being with the grieving person and listening properly is the main thing that can be done. The more the counselor empathizes with grief and the more adequately he perceives his own emotional reactions associated with help, the more effective the healing effect. You should not superficially soothe a grieving person. Confusion and formal phrases only create an uncomfortable situation. The client must be given the opportunity to express any feelings, and all of them must be perceived without prejudice.

In some circumstances, grief can be overwhelming. For example, older people who have lost several friends or relatives within a year or two may experience loss overload. A serious threat, especially for men, is the development of depression in the period following the death of a loved one. No less dangerous, again for men, is the abuse of alcohol or drugs in order to forget from painful thoughts. Others use the "geographical way" - continuous travel or continuous work with great tension, which does not allow you to think about anything other than everyday affairs.

Thus, there is no universal or correct way to grieve, although the expectations of society have a tangible effect on people in this matter.

American psychotherapist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross described the five stages a person goes through when they learn about their terminal diagnosis. Helping the dying and their loved ones, the psychotherapist noted that those who have lost one of their relatives also go through similar stages of grief. So,

The first stage of grief

At the first stage of experiencing grief, a person's consciousness includes self-defense from negative experiences with the help of such a psychological mechanism as denial.

Denial, as the first stage of experiencing grief, manifests itself in such thoughts and judgments as: “It’s all not true, and it’s simply impossible!” A person is not able to believe in the reality of what happened or what is happening, therefore, everything is denied.

The second stage of grief

After a certain time, a person begins to realize everything that happens to him. He asks questions such as: “Why me? It's so unfair!"

At the same time, irritation, hostility towards others and anger at those who reported the sad news naturally arise.

The third stage of grief

In the third stage of the grief experience, there is an irrational desire to return to the past, when everything was fine, and make an retrospective deal with fate or with God: “I (not) will do such and such, just let him live!” Also, a person here often begins to fantasize on the topic “what would happen if.” etc.

Depression is the next stage of grief

At this stage of grief, one loses all hope: "All is lost, nothing else matters." Despair and emptiness come, loss of interest in one's life.

The Fifth Stage of Grief

Any loss leads to changes, primarily internal ones. Therefore, at this stage of grief comes understanding, acceptance and a sense of peace: "I understand and accept that this is so." It is during this period that many reevaluate their lives and find new meaning in it.

These stages can sometimes be experienced in a different order. It is also possible that a person may go through only some of these stages of grief, such as anger, depression, and acceptance.

It often happens that, having gone through some stage of grief, a person suddenly returns to it for some time. How strong, deep and long the experience of grief will be depends largely on the individual characteristics of the individual.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross "On Life After Death"