Briscombe Care

Bereavement

To be bereaved usually means to lose someone we love through death. It results in a great longing for the dead person and a period of adjustment which may take years. All parts of our being may be affected - emotional, physical, spiritual and social - but the overriding feeling is one of intense pain, or grief.

• It's estimated that each day 500 women in the UK will become widows.
• It's estimated that 175,000 men in the UK become widowers each year.
• About 180,000 children under the age of 16 years lose a parent.
• About 12,000 children die in the UK each year.
• Many others are affected by the death of a parent, a friend or a much-loved pet.

What Is Grief?

Grief is the name given to the natural reactions we have after the death of someone who's been close to us. Like with a physical injury, the recovery and healing process can take time. This period cannot be rushed and varies from individual to individual. When we're grieving, it's difficult to understand what's happening. One of the ways in which we can understand better is to look at other losses in our lives, each of which requires a period of adjustment. Even a simple one such as losing a purse will produce a reaction. Initially, we may have feelings of disbelief, panic, confusion, leading to annoyance, anger and inconvenience. Life has been temporarily upset and it takes a while to adjust to the new situation. In time, we'll either find the purse or accept its loss.

Learning To Adapt

Recovering from a death is similar but feelings are more intense, painful and last much longer. It too is a process of learning to adapt to the new situation. There's an empty space where before there was a living human being. We have to adjust to life without that person.

Our pain and suffering is the price we pay for loving. Any pain is tiring. A toothache can be relieved by an analgesic or a visit to the dentist, but the acute pain of grief is constantly with us, unrelieved by any painkiller. While we're going through the pain, it's difficult to believe that we'll ever enjoy life again. But in time our grieving will ease and gradually life will become more bearable and even pleasurable.

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Please click below to learn more about:

• Low self-esteem
• Anxiety
• Anger
• Mild to moderate depression
• Bereavement
• Return to Counselling

Counselling By Telephone

Telephone counselling can be as supportive and productive as a face-to-face relationship. The main difference between the two approaches is that body language is not a factor when working on the telephone. This need not detract from the process and may indeed prove supportive. This is because distractions are minimised, which helps increased concentration and focus. Thus telephone counselling can work faster than traditional therapeutic encounters. Furthermore, working with a counsellor on the telephone can enable you to feel more able to express yourself freely due to the increased sense of anonymity.

Counselling By Email

Email counselling can prove as effective as both face-to-face and telephone counselling, but it is different again. It relies on the written word and there is a delay in response times. Your counsellor may ask you more questions than usual in order to support their understanding of your issues. You do not have to answer these questions if you do not wish to, however the process does rely on you giving appropriate information to enable productive work to take place. Your counsellor will also support you to work on issues between sessions by giving you a variety of tasks and exercises. Using this medium you will do a lot of the work yourself, guided and supported throughout the process by your counsellor.

For further information, either telephone 0 333 444 555 0 or email info@briscombecare.com