Grief Processing Therapy

Few events are as profound as the loss of a loved one. Never mind how you lost that person: unexpectedly, or after a sickbed. Someone said after an unexpected death about this: From “that” moment there was no past or future, only a before and after. Poet M. Vasalis wrote: One is strung with very andre strings, and he who did not experience it does not know it.

Grief counseling is not just about the emotion and the loss, but more importantly about what that loss does to you, and what changes it brings about in you. Many people experience emotional, physical and/or social changes. It is also an identity change, you are no longer the partner, the mother, the son or daughter of. It can affect how you experience the world, or your spiritual experience. In short, the story of your life changed, and you lost yourself for a while.

Sometimes it can be painful if you also had many negative feelings toward the one who died. Or because the story between you and that person is not finished. In grief counseling, it is certainly important to look at the bond you had with the person who died, and how it can be reshaped.

Another type of grief deals with loss that occurred in childhood. Children used to be overlooked quite often when a parent or sibling died. They got everything but were sidelined when the loss was discussed. With CI and grief counseling, you can still bring closure to the loss.

If you are reading this, it may be that grief is also a difficult process for you, that you would like to tell your story, and give your loss experience a place.

You may be wondering how I came to focus on grief professionally. In my conversations through CI, unprocessed loss is a topic that comes up frequently. That made me want to delve more into that and started to do additional studies in grief counseling at the master’s level at VID, scientific college in Oslo. I discovered what a fascinating field it actually is because so many aspects of life come together in this.