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Grief is the pain that accompanies an important loss. Unless one chooses to avoid all attachments, grief is an inescapable part of life. Healthy grieving is the process of saying good-bye. The goal isn’t to forget but rather to get pleasure from your memories.
Everyone grieves differently depending on the person and the situation. Even so, some elements of grief are common for most people. For instance, immediately after the death of someone you care about, you tend to feel numb, hopeless, and overwhelmed. Most business is done automatically and little is remembered about this time. As the days pass, fewer people talk about the deceased. This is a difficult period when you seem to be suffering alone. Your major struggle is with depression. It’s common for people to experience overwhelming feelings of helplessness, guilt, hostility, and sometimes even the strong desire to attempt suicide.
Anger is another part of grief. Common targets are non-supportive family members, ambulance drivers, doctors, the police, and God.
Most people who experience the death of a loved one are preoccupied with it. You may be caught up in a fantasy world about the deceased, or perceive his or her presence in a dream, a fragrance, a footstep, a voice.
The most important thing a grieving person needs is a sensitive listener who’ll allow him or her to talk about what has happened. In addition, the listener provides reassurance that grief is the response of a healthy person capable of making an attachment, that the sharp edge of the pain will dull with time, and that the person is doing the right thing in talking about something so important, no matter when the death occurred.
We provide individual counseling in clients’ homes, at their place of business, and at our offices in Walnut Creek. Counseling is conducted by trained volunteers, many of whom have experienced the death of a loved one themselves and received grief counseling from our agency.
Individuals can receive personal, one-on-one grief counseling once per week or less often if they choose. Counseling can be one-time or last for months, depending on the needs of the client. All counseling is free, and many of our grief counselors speak Spanish.
We operate a number of grief support groups throughout Contra Costa County because many people prefer to share their thoughts and feelings with others who have experienced a similar loss. The therapeutic value of counseling comes as much from an individual's interaction with group members as it does from his or her interaction with the group facilitator, who is either a member of our staff or a highly trained volunteer. Children in particular may open up only in the presence of other grieving children—and only after many months of group sessions.
Ongoing groups meet for children, teens, parents who have lost children, survivors after suicide, partners, families victimized by SIDS, and widows and widowers. Most groups run in an eight to ten week series, and individuals are welcome to renew their commitment for a new group or receive individual counseling. New groups meet in the fall, winter, and spring (not summer because vacations prove disruptive). All counseling is free.
We have a special team of staff and volunteers who provide grief counseling at schools and businesses following the death of a student or employee. Called postvention, this counseling orients friends, teachers, and colleagues to the grief process. We also provide support to family members.
If the student or employee died by suicide, we talk about feelings people may experience, feelings such as anger, guilt, shame, and rejection. We also counsel school personnel and the media in actions that reduce the likelihood of subsequent, imitative suicides. This includes appropriate ways to memorialize the victim and guidelines for discussing suicide.
There’s nothing in the lives of youths that prepares them for death. Whether it's the death of a parent, sibling, or friend, children have limited life experiences to draw on. As a result, they grieve differently than adults. Children tend to internalize their feelings more and to take death personally, as if they are responsible for someone dying because they wished it or this is their punishment for a bad deed. They may feel abandoned, that the deceased "ran out on them," and fear further abandonment or be unable to trust others, even people close to them. Oftentimes they fantasize about a reunion with the person who died.
A grieving child needs permission and opportunity to grieve. He or she needs to be allowed to act out feelings in ways that don't always seem appropriate to adults. Younger children especially may not be able to say what they feel. They may depend on body language and behavior, or they may express themselves through art.
Many children feel most comfortable sharing their feelings with other children who have experienced a similar loss. This is why support groups are so valuable. In groups, children and teens learn to express their pain, vent their feelings, and hear honest answers about death and the grieving process. With understanding and support, they’re able to complete the cycle of grief, moving from denial and numbness through sadness, depression, anger, and anxiety to eventual acceptance of reality and re-establishment of life.
Soon you'll be able to view a five-minute streaming video on our youth grief counseling program.
Soon you'll be able to view a 13-minute streaming video on our adult grief counseling program.
To view, download, and print a flyer on our grief counseling program, click here .
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