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Article
Understanding Grief
Brody, J. E. (2018). New York Times. Retrieved from:
Although many of us are able to speak frankly about death, we
still have a lot to learn about dealing wisely with its aftermath: grief, the
natural reaction to loss of a loved one.
Relatively few of us know what to say or do that can be truly
helpful to a relative, friend or acquaintance who is grieving. In fact,
relatively few who have suffered a painful loss know how to be most helpful to
themselves.
Two new books by psychotherapists who have worked extensively in
the field of loss and grief are replete with stories and guidance that can help
both those in mourning and the people they encounter avoid many of the common
pitfalls and misunderstandings associated with grief. Both books attempt to
correct false assumptions about how and how long grief might be experienced.
One book, “It’s OK That You’re Not OK,” by Megan Devine of
Portland, Ore., has the telling subtitle “Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture
That Doesn’t Understand.” It grew out of the tragic loss of her beloved
partner, who drowned at age 39 while the couple was on vacation. The other
book, especially illuminating in its coverage of how people cope with different
kinds of losses, is “Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and Surviving,” by
Julia Samuel, who works with bereaved families both in private practice and at
England’s National Health Service, at St. Mary’s hospital, Paddington.
The books share a most telling message: As Ms.
Samuel put it, “There is no right or wrong in grief; we need to accept whatever
form it takes, both in ourselves and in others.” Recognizing loss as a
universal experience, Ms. Devine hopes that “if we can start to understand the
true nature of grief, we can have a more helpful, loving, supportive culture.”
Both authors emphasize that grief is not a problem to be solved or
resolved. Rather, it’s a process to be tended and lived through in whatever
form and however long it may take.
“The process cannot be hurried by friends and family,” however
well meaning their desire to relieve the griever’s anguish, Ms. Samuel wrote.
“Recovery and adjustment can take much longer than most people realize. We need
to accept whatever form it takes, both in ourselves and in others.”
We can all benefit from learning how to respond to grief in ways
that don’t prolong, intensify or dismiss the pain. Likewise, those trying to
help need to know that grief cannot be fit into a preordained time frame or
form of expression. Too often people who experience a loss are disparaged
because their mourning persists longer than others think reasonable or because
they remain self-contained and seem not to mourn at all.
I imagine, for example, that some adults thought my stoical
response to my mother’s premature death when I was 16 was “unnatural.” In
truth, after tending to her for a year as she suffered through an unstoppable
cancer, her death was a relief. It took a year for me to shed my armor and
openly mourn the incalculable loss. But 60 years later, I still treasure her
most important legacy: To live each day as if it could be my last but with an
eye
Both authors emphasize that grief is not a problem to be solved or
resolved. Rather, it’s a process to be tended and lived through in whatever
form and however long it may take.
“The process cannot be hurried by friends and family,” however
well meaning their desire to relieve the griever’s anguish, Ms. Samuel wrote.
“Recovery and adjustment can take much longer than most people realize. We need
to accept whatever form it takes, both in ourselves and in others.”
We can all benefit from learning how to respond to grief in ways
that don’t prolong, intensify or dismiss the pain. Likewise, those trying to
help need to know that grief cannot be fit into a preordained time frame or
form of expression. Too often people who experience a loss are disparaged
because their mourning persists longer than others think reasonable or because
they remain self-contained and seem not to mourn at all.
I imagine, for example, that some adults thought my stoical
response to my mother’s premature death when I was 16 was “unnatural.” In
truth, after tending to her for a year as she suffered through an unstoppable
cancer, her death was a relief. It took a year for me to shed my armor and
openly mourn the incalculable loss. But 60 years later, I still treasure her
most important legacy: To live each day as if it could be my last but with an
eye
Just as we all love others in our own unique ways, so do we mourn
their loss in ways that cannot be fit into a single mold or even a dozen
different molds. Last month, James G. Robinson, director of global analytics
for The New York Times, described a 37-day, 6,150-mile therapeutic
road trip he took with his
family following the death of his 5-year-old son, collecting commemorative
objects along the way and giving each member of the family a chance to express
anger and sadness about the untimely loss.
Ms. Devine maintains that most grief support offered by
professionals and others takes the wrong approach by encouraging mourners to
move through the pain. While family and friends naturally want you to feel better, “pain that is not allowed to
be spoken or expressed turns in on itself, and creates more problems,” she
wrote. “Unacknowledged and unheard pain doesn’t go away. The way to survive
grief is by allowing pain to exist, not in trying to cover it up or rush
through it.”
As a bereaved mother told Ms. Samuel, “You never ‘get over it,’
you ‘get on with it,’ and you never ‘move on,’ but you ‘move forward.’”
Ms. Devine agrees that being “encouraged to ‘get
over it’ is one of the biggest causes of suffering inside grief.” Rather than
trying to “cure” pain, the goal should be to minimize suffering, which she said
“comes when we feel dismissed or unsupported in our pain, with being told there
is something wrong with what you feel.”
She explains that pain cannot be “fixed,” that companionship, not
correction, is the best way to deal with grief. She encourages those who want
to be helpful to “bear witness,” to offer friendship without probing questions
or unsolicited advice, help if it is needed and wanted, and a listening ear no
matter how often mourners wish to tell their story.
To those who grieve, she suggests finding a nondestructive way to
express it. “If you can’t tell your story to another human, find another way:
journal, paint, make your grief into a graphic novel with a very dark story
line. Or go out to the woods and tell the trees. It
is an immense relief to be able to tell your story without someone trying to
fix it.”
She also suggests keeping a journal that records situations that
either intensify or relieve suffering. “Are there times you feel more stable,
more grounded, more able to breathe inside your loss? Does anything — a person,
a place, an activity — add to your energy bank account? Conversely, are there
activities or environments that absolutely make things worse?”
Whenever possible, to decrease suffering choose to engage in
things that help and avoid those that don’t.
A version of this article
appears in print on January 16, 2018, on Page D5 of the New York edition with the headline: Understanding Grief, and
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