This
experience-based article is one of a series on effective clinical interventions with
low-nurturance family clients. A "low nurturance family" is one in which members
seldom get their
met in wholistically-healthy ways. An
effective intervention is an instinctive or intentional behavior of the
clinician which significantly raises the family's nurturance level in the
opinion of all involved.
Prepare
To get
the most from this article, first read:
Why
Lesson 3 Exists
From infancy, normal kids and adults
favorite objects, living things, rituals, places, ideas, sounds, tastes,
dreams, and beliefs. Through choice or chance, these bonds eventually break,
causing painful
Nature provides an instinctive emotional-spiritual adjustment process that helps
us gradually understand and accept our significant (a) losses and (b) their impacts, so we can
resume our life pursuits and form selected new bonds.
This natural (unconscious) loss-adjustment
reflex is called
grieving and mourning.
Depending on a mix of interactive psychological and environmental factors,
the gradual mental + emotional + spiritual
process of reaching stable loss-acceptance in a person or a family can be slowed or blocked.
If not admitted and corrected, this can promote significant emotional and
physical symptoms like "depression;" apathy or "laziness;" obesity;
crying "attacks;" significant irritability and rage outbursts (e.g. "road rage"
and domestic violence), chronic trouble sleeping, digesting, and focusing;
excessive social isolation, and episodic suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Many
of low-nurturance childhoods are unaware of being inhibited from healthy grieving
by lacking self and social awareness, and internal and/or external
to mourn.
Typical adults and kids in troubled and divorcing
biofamilies and
stepfamilies are at significant risk of unfinished or blocked grief without
knowing it or what it can mean. Lesson 3 in this model aims to...
-
educate co-parents and
supporters (in any family) on (a) healthy-grief basics, and (b) typical
and impacts of blocked grief; and
to...
-
provide effective ways to spot and free up any blocked mourning among them. It
also...
-
encourages family adults to proactively evolve an effective family grieving
policy and...
-
wanting to live by it and teach their descendents to understand and value it.
| Unlike
older, wiser cultures more attuned to Nature, our feel-good, hyperactive, excitement-oriented
media and society generally minimizes or ignores healthy three-level grief. One
result is that unfinished mourning
is one of five epidemic personal and family stressors in our
society. |
Useful Lesson-3 Interventions for typical divorcing, courting, and
re/married
co-parents, ex mates, kids, and their relatives.
Effective clinicians, supervisors, case managers, consultants, clinical
directors, and instructors will be thoroly familiar with (a) attachment and
loss, theory; (b) healthy grieving basics, (c) common
incomplete and blocked-grief symptoms, and (d) practical strategies to motivate
typical clients to form and live by
healthy personal and family grieving policies.
These Lesson-3 interventions will need to be
spread across several sessions, and may or may not be triggered by
the client's presenting problems. Reality check: have you met or
heard of any client who said "...and we need professional help with healthy
grieving"?
Premise: interactive causes of incomplete and blocked grief in any person and
family are:
-
unacknowledged
(denied)
false-self (psychological)
plus...
-
societal, family, and
co-parental ignorance about healthy-grieving
basics,
plus...
-
lack of consistent inner and outer
to mourn,
plus...
-
an
ineffective family
and...
-
ineffective family
and
Implication - if this premise is true, then freeing blocked grief requires
skillful assessment and intervention with each of these factors. Pause, breathe,
and reflect: how do these proposed factors compare with your current ideas about
what causes incomplete and blocked grief?
The Lesson-3 interventions below aim to
prevent and reduce delayed and blocked mourning in any client family: They are particularly useful in
average divorcing families and stepfamilies because of their many systemic
changes and broken bonds, and adults' common grieving inhibitions. Follow
the links for more detail on each intervention.
|
5-1)
If appropriate, (a) describe the five common
family hazards, and (b) ask clients whether the hazards pertain to
their current family
5-2) Review and discuss
attachment (bonding), losses (broken bonds), and healthy three-level grieving basics
as appropriate
a) Assess whether the clients
accept that thruout their lives, typical adults and kids need to
grieve many types of broken bonds, not just deaths.
b) Propose and discuss the
three-level model of the normal grieving process, and outline the
key phases in each level. Note client reactions.
c) Propose, illustrate,
and discuss the seven requisites for wholistically-healthy grief,
and assess clients' reactions to them.
d) Propose how
false-self domination and related psychological wounds can hinder
personal and family mourning. Note client reactions.
e) Explain, illustrate,
and discuss the concepts of inner and out permissions to mourn, and
note the clients' reactions.
5-3) Ask clients to
describe (a) what grief-supports typical adults and kids need, and (b) their
present style of supporting mourners in their family
5-4) Summarize and illustrate
the idea of an effective family "grieving policy," and ask co-parents if they
can describe their respective childhood-family grief policies.
|
5-5) Ask co-parents if they can
describe their recent family grief policies, and how effective they
are.
5-6)
Describe and discuss incomplete and blocked mourning,
and their typical symptoms and effects,
5-7)
Invite the clients to inventory the major intangible and tangible
losses in their recent lives - specially from divorce, death, birth
or adoptions, geographic relocations, and stepfamily cohabiting.
5-8)
Explore whether any client
family-members might be unfinished or blocked in grieving any of
these key losses.
5-9)
If / as appropriate, discuss and role-play family options for
helping any blocked grievers resume their mourning.
5-10)
Review strategies to motivate other family members to
learn and practice these "good grief" basics, and to help each other
evolve an effective family grieving policy.
5-11)
Follow up in future client contacts to see if they're implementing
the key ideas here - specially assessing for and freeing any blocked
grief. If they're not, decide whether to repeat selected Lesson-3
interventions now or later.
|
As
with all the Projects, there is no "right way" to intervene here - these are
meant to be suggestive. The
&
symbol below denotes a printable reference handout for clients and
colleagues. Here's more detail on each of these basic Lesson-3 interventions...
5-1)
If appropriate, (a) describe the five common
family hazards, and (b) ask clients whether the hazards pertain to
their current family.
Why? This
clinical model proposes that a common major personal and family
in our society
is blocked grief - specially in typical divorcing families and stepfamilies. It
also proposes that most adults have a superficial understanding of the
grieving process, and are unaware of the symptoms of blocked grief and it's
potential toxic impacts on health, relationships, and families.
Invite interest and create context by
proposing that most families in our culture - like the client's family - are
affected to some extent by four or five
&.
Emphasize that one of them is
incomplete and blocked grief - difficulty facing and accepting
inevitable broken bonds.
Ask the client's reaction to these
stressors - e.g. interest, apprehension, indifference, intellectualizing,
rejection, ...; and answer any questions about them. Option - relate
the stressors to the client's presenting problems, if/as appropriate.
Option - build further interest
by proposing that unchecked, these stressors tend to promote significant
psychological wounds and major life problems in the clients' vulnerable
descendents.
Intervention 5-2) Review and discuss
attachment (bonding), losses (broken bonds), and healthy three-level grieving basics
as appropriate.
Why?
Typical clients need this information to help evolve and use a healthy
family grieving policy, and minimize, avoid, or free up any blocked grief and
related systemic problems. They usually don't know they need it, and will rarely
ask for it. The most cost-effective way to provide this intervention is in a
seminar or class like
5-2a)
-
Assess whether the clients
accept that thruout their lives, typical adults and kids need to
grieve many types of broken bonds, not just deaths.
Why?
5-2b)
-
Propose and discuss the
three-level model of the normal grieving process, and outline the
key phases in each level. Note client reactions.
Why?
Intervention 5-2c) Propose,
illustrate, and discuss the seven requisites for wholistically-healthy grief,
and assess clients' reactions to them.
Why?
5-2d)
Propose how
false-self domination and related psychological wounds can hinder personal and
family mourning. Note client reactions.
Why?
5-2e)
Explain, illustrate, and discuss the concepts of inner and out permissions to
mourn, and note the clients' reactions.
Why?
5-3) -
Why?
5-4)
Why -
Intervention 5-5)
Why -
5-6)
Why -
The Web
address of this article is
https://sfhelp.org/pro/rx/grief.htm