Possible Approaches in Counseling People Dealing With Bereavement Article

Possible Approaches in Counseling People Dealing With Bereavement - Article Example Death is not a mystery to those who have died. The people living are the ones who struggle to find meaning in it. As far back as 60,000 years ago, prehistoric people observed special ceremonies when burying their dead. Many early cultures believed that people continued to exist after death and had the same needs that they did in life; hence they buried their loved ones with food, dishes, weapons, and jewels. Some religions, such as Christianity, believe that the dead will rise again; to them, the burial of the body is symbolic, like the planting of a seed in the earth to await rebirth. Many Eastern religions share the belief that death marks the end only of physical existence and of the limited view of reality that human beings can grasp. Death itself is a remote experience in most lives today, something that takes place off-stage in a hospital or nursing-home. In earlier times, dying was a much more visible part of daily living. Families, friends, and other loved ones in a community would share in caring for those at the end of life (Schulz et al., 27 June 2001) Most deaths occurred at home, often following a brief illness and unaffected by the limited medical care available. Today, the process of dying almost has become invisible, but it still summons pain among the loved ones left (Bern-Krug et al., February 2001). Coping with loss is a process with an individual course, tem... There are others who benefit from, and still others who continue to require the assistance of, qualified psychotherapists in confronting the void left by death. There is no single ideal time point for therapeutic intervention. As practiced today, bereavement counselling is a valuable and non-stigmatizing method of assisting the bereaved who have difficulty entering, traversing or exiting the grief and mourning process. Review of Literature Throughout history, numerous writers and researchers have articulated their views of what constitutes the bereaved state and its associated actions, particularly since 1970. The earliest conceptualizations was done by Freud (1957), where he related it to loss situation-specific depressive syndromes, and he spoke of restitution of cathected or invested energies, particularly those of id origin. Later formulations bore the hallmark of attachment theory grounding, wherein the broken bond with the lost object/person is the subject and object of a universal psychosocial process leading to eventual reconciliation of painful feelings and reattachment to life, living and, for some, even new relationships. Colin Murray Parkes (1972) also cited stigma and deprivation as key features of the bereavement experience. These authors based their findings largely on studies of widows in Britain, Australia, and North America. Many of these seminal works on bereavement brought about a linear stage model of progression to some better state post-loss. Examples include the popularized views of Elisabeth Kbler-Ross (1969), who wrote of movement from denial, through anger, to bargaining, then to depression, and finally to acceptance. This often misrepresented and misused description none the less has