Clarity Holistic Health

What is grief?

Grief is a natural response when someone has died.  The pain of loss is real and it can be overwhelming.  Grief is complex and there is no exact timetable for dealing with the variety of emotions that emerge, despite common myths that one might hear.

What do people experience when they grieve?

While there are similarities, most people deal with grief and loss in a deeply personal way.  Some people appear to jump back into their usual routine without much outward display of emotion, yet they often have many questions, concerns, and pain buried underneath the outward smile.  Others may find it extremely difficult to get back to their daily routines.  Everyone is different.  To lose a loved one is a profound experience  If the death was untimely and traumatic, the pain may truly feel unbearable.

Some common reactions people experience during the grieving process include:

- Feeling profound sadness

- Disbelief

- Tearfulness

- Numbness or shock

- Loneliness

- Isolating and Avoidance

- Difficulty sleeping

- Guilt

- Fear

- Anxiety

- Increased drug and/or alcohol use

- Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed

- Deep questioning about the meaning of life

How does grief counseling help?

Grief counseling offers you a chance to unpack, examine and process emotions surrounding the event in your own way and in your own time.   It can help you better understand common myths surrounding grief and how to handle changes in your life.  At CHH, we do not pathologize grief, as it is a perfectly normal human reaction to loss.  We  walk with you on your journey - exploring and uncovering the difficult emotions that most, simply do not understand.  While we do not have all the answers,  our specialized training with experts in the field of grief counseling and compassionate bereavement - offers you an opportunity to develop a roadmap for life after traumatic loss.  

"The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate."

- Rilke

What is traumatic grief?

Current literature recognizes traumatic grief as:  the death of a baby or child, violent death, suicide, homicide, untimely deaths.  Traumatic grief symptoms are often more expansive and may include: (1)

- feeling unfulfilled without the deceased

- avoidance of painful reminders of the loss

- futility about the future

- feeling as if part of the self has also died

- numbness and detachment

- shattered world view (regarding trust, security, control

-feeling shocked, stunned, and dazed

- disbelief about death

- emptiness

- taking on harmful behaviors of the deceased

- bitterness

(1) Source:  SELAH:  An Invitation Toward Fully Inhabited Grief

At Clarity Holistic Health, we utilize the ATTEND MODEL OF GRIEF developed by Arizona State University professor, author and researcher, Dr. Joanne Cacciatore.  ATTEND stands for:

Attunement

Trust

Therapeutic Touch

Egalitarianism

Nuance

Death Education

It is a mindful and evidence-based, culturally sensitive paradigm for compassionate care to the traumatically bereaved which does not pathologize grief.  This model has been shown to reduce depressive, anxious, and trauma symptomatology in both clients and clinicians.