DATE, 2001

'Grief work' can help overcome feelings of despair

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- If this holiday is your first since losing a loved one -- whether to death, divorce or any sort of separation -- the season may seem to have lost its sparkle.

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Don't despair. Just be aware that several things may be coalescing just when you're feeling most vulnerable, says psychotherapist Harry A. Allen, professor emeritus of the Rehabilitation Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

"At Christmas and Hanukkah, many things are happening. This is a time of year when nature itself is looking within. Trees are losing their leaves. There's a dropping of energy back into the earth, animals are beginning to find hibernation spots. There's a great deal of darkness -- and we're in a more 'look within' space," Allen, a former professor and counselor for more than 35 years, says in a deep, reassuring voice.

Life may look particularly dreary this year in the wake of the terrorist attacks, he adds.

"Our personal grief for the losses we've had is triggered again by experiences such as September 11 because grief has a tendency to be cumulative," he explains.

And unlike any other season, this one is steeped with its own brand of sights, sounds and aromas -- which may remind us of Christmases past.

When you least expect it, a whiff of pine, twinkling lights or strains of your late husband's favorite Christmas carol may trigger unanticipated tears and sadness.

"These holiday experiences have memories attached to them. And those memories open us up to thoughts of lost loves and lost hopes," says Allen, who as a former minister and hospital chaplain first worked with burn victims, cancer and AIDS patients and their families and performed funerals.

On the bright side, he notes, this year's events seem also to have stirred America's collective compassion.

"People are talking more about grief and loss and sharing those things," says Allen.

That can help start the healing. What more can be done to ease the pain of losing someone special?

You have to do what professionals call your "grief work," says the 61-year-old Allen.

Grief, he says, has been described as "the heart's cry of mourning for the lost beloved. If it is to best serve us, it must be seen as a process that involves work and effort. One in which we must take an active role.

"It involves new learning and often acquiring new behaviors, thoughts and beliefs. The process is seldom, if ever, linear. It touches all areas of your life, the physical, emotional, spiritual and economic."

It can't be done overnight.

"Grieving normally takes more time than people think. It takes time to get over and yet time alone won't cure it. And it doesn't have to be done all at once over the holidays," he adds with a knowing smile.

Where do you start?

Allen says five processes, which overlap and are intermingled rather than discrete steps, are helpful in grief work:

Recognition and acceptance: Acknowledge the loss and its ramifications for you. While denial is a useful defense when dealing with emergencies, in the long run if the wound caused by your loss is not attended to, it will fester and cause more severe problems.

Compassionately work with your pain: Confront the pain wrought by your primary loss (the actual death or separation from a loved one) and the secondary losses associated with it (for instance, you don't just lose a spouse, you may also have lost the person who was your tennis partner, your cook and travel agent). This is a time when you will need to have great personal compassion and social support to sort through the physical, social and emotional pains brought by these losses.

Adjust to your changed life space: Recollect and remember both your idealization of and the true nature of the relationship you lost. To effectively come to a new life space, you will need to honor and recognize what you need in this present moment.

Be willing to let go: Perhaps one of the most difficult issues in grief work is becoming willing to let go of the lost relationship and the lost loved one. This may seem disloyal. Some hold on to pain as a way to hold on to that which is gone. In truth, there is no way to really do that. Most of us gradually become aware of that and begin to adjust to our new life circumstance.

Be willing to readjust and reinvest: To let go of what was, begin with what is. That often requires learning new skills or revising old ones. This is another time when you need to be compassionate with yourself and seek outside support, too. Let go of the familiar and stretch toward that which may be, but is not yet. Hope and faith are necessary to prop up your motivation and striving. For some, this step will feel like learning to walk in the world again. It is only through this reinvestment that we come to the freedom and choice of a new identity.

"There are many things that may help the grief work along: support of a trained counselor or minister, compassionate friends and family, support groups, readings, developing memorials and rituals, journaling and other creative expressions of your grief, and finding anew what you want and find meaningful in life," Allen says.

"This is really a time to deepen your own spiritual path, whatever that is and however that comes, it needs to be nourished, whether it's through prayer, meditation or sitting in nature.

"And you need to be a good steward of your finances. We have a tendency to overspend, to pour out a lot of money to salve our own depression. And generally that leads to a deeper state of crisis," Allen adds.

If after two months the person in mourning is consistently experiencing morbid thoughts of their own death, a continued sense of worthlessness or frequently "seeing" their deceased loved one, they should seek professional help, he adds.

(Editors, note: Allen is available for interviews at 618/457-2141.)

(CAPTION: Good grief -- Americans tend to live in a "death-denying culture," says psychotherapist Harry A. Allen, also professor emeritus in the Rehabilitation Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Sooner or later, we all face the loss of a loved one. We must actively work through the accompanying grief -- which Allen says is a bridge that allows us to cross over from "what was, to what is and what will be.")

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Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Carbondale, IL 62901-6519

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Southern Illinois University
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