Grief
Have you suffered a recent significant loss. Has a close friend of family member passed away? Have you been made redundant? Have your children moved out of the family home? Have you suffered a devastating break up from a spouse/partner?
Grief is a profoundly individual experience, and there is certainly no 'normal' or 'correct' way for us to grieve. How we respond to grief will be influenced by a wide range of factors, including our age, our culture and religious beliefs, or whether we have ever been bereaved before. The typical feelings we associate with grief are, for example: shock and disbelief, sadness, exhaustion and tiredness, anger, guilt, anxiety, stress. These are normal feelings and should pass gradually, provided you have the space and time you need to process them.
Psychotherapy provides the space where you can process all your understandable feelings that arise during grief, facilitating you coming to terms with your loss. Quite often talking to a professional helps you make sense of the grief you're experiencing. The way I work is by providing the space for you to move through your grief, at your pace. Very often, my clients will be concerned with how long they feel the often-debilitating effects of intense grief. Feeling perhaps overwhelmed by their loss, they wish to know if they will be able to manage at all. There is no simple answer to how long grief will last. You might say it never leaves us. Talking to a professional has been proven to help. The hope is that we learn ways to live with our loss and manage our grief.