Bereavement counselling is a specialised type of counselling that involves supporting individuals who have experienced the loss of a loved one, helping them to work through their grief and learn coping mechanisms to support themselves now circumstances may have changed.
Coping with loss can be extremely difficult to bear and all kinds of loss are extremely common as people get older. The loss of a spouse is perhaps the largest category in bereavement and the loss of a child is also a major bereavement which can be extremely painful to bear. However, the loss or breakdown of a wanted relationship or the end of a career can trigger feelings of grief similar to those experienced by a bereavement.
Many people think grief is similar to sadness but in fact grief often involves a more complex process of different emotions which may include shock, trauma, anger, anxiety and feeling numb and disconnected. Grief is different for everyone and there is no ‘correct’ way to grieve, it may take weeks, months or even years for someone to fully grieve their loss.
The grief from the loss of a loved one most people eventually recover from, unprocessed grief which has been bottled up over a period of years or the failure to grieve through keeping busy as a protective mechanism or being too frightened to talk about your feelings in case the emotional floodgates open, can be the root of a person’s low mood and further complicated by clinical depression.
Therapy can help people process and come to terms with the loss they have experienced and begin to start living and enjoying life again.