Growing around grief: Implications for practice Lois Tonkin Cruse Masterclass 2017

Overview What losses? How has loss and grieving been understood, and how might we understand it now? Growing around grief; the circles model Disenfranchised grief What does ‘growing around grief’ entail? What helps? Putting theory to work in practice Developing conversations for people to ‘restory’ their losses

How is grieving conceptualised? Psychoanalytic frames Psychosocial dimensions ‘Stages’ and ‘Tasks’ of grieving ‘Continuing Bonds’ model Grief as a process of meaning making Grieving as an active process

Growing Around Grief

From ‘Motherless Daughters’ Edelman (1994)

Thinking about the Circles model How do you see grief? How does this fit with your experience and that of those you work with? What are your concerns? What strengths/limitations to a circles model do you see? Does it apply to non-death losses

A psychosocial perspective

Factors that impact on grieving Relational Circumstantial Historical Social Cultural Spiritual Psychological

Disenfranchised grief (Doka 1989, 2002) Grief that cannot be openly acknowledged, socially shared, or publicly supported

Disenfranchised grief (Doka 1989, 2002) The concept of disenfranchised grief recognizes that societies have sets of norms – in effect ‘grieving rules’ – that attempt to specify who, when, where, how long, and for whom people should grieve. Brabant (2002)

Grief is disenfranchised when The relationship is not recognised The loss is not acknowledged The griever is excluded The circumstances of the loss are socially unacceptable The ways of grieving are socially unacceptable

‘Circumstantial childlessness’: a disenfranchised grief I had the opportunity to have a child, um, so I don’t have the right to be sad about not having children [pause] in society’s eyes, yeah. I give, I, yeah I give myself the right, privately.

‘Circumstantial childlessness’: a disenfranchised grief I guess it’s weird isn’t it because you haven’t really lost anything because you didn’t have it in the first place in a way. But there’s that loss because you haven’t got it, you haven’t had that chance. It’s, I suppose you could almost, you could describe it as grief really because you, I don’t know, it must be a, I suppose it’s such a powerful thing this urge to have children to, you know, so yeah I think you could call it grief.

Thinking about ‘Disenfranchised Grief’ What are the ‘rules’ of grieving that you are aware of? Whose grief and what losses are disenfranchised? How do they shape grieving in your workplaces and social circles? What are the important implications of the concept of disenfranchised grief in your work with grieving people?

Developing a mindful presence “You can’t wipe the tears from someone else’s face without getting your hands wet.” Zulu proverb Mindlfulness is a practice of being aware of and in the present moment; of consciously bringing our attention WITHOUT JUDGEMENT to what is happening in this moment. It includes our awareness of others, and of our own responses. It includes our physical responses, and our thoughts, and the ways these are linked. “When we honestly ask ourselves which person means the most to us, we often find it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness: that is a friend who cares.” -Henri Nouwen, from "Out of Solitude" What gets in the way of our doing this? Brainstorm as a whole group? Our own fears, for ourselves and for others. loistonkin.com

Thinking about your own grief circles What does your own circles of grief picture look like? In what ways have you grown around grief? Mindlfulness is a practice of being aware of and in the present moment; of consciously bringing our attention WITHOUT JUDGEMENT to what is happening in this moment. It includes our awareness of others, and of our own responses. It includes our physical responses, and our thoughts, and the ways these are linked. “When we honestly ask ourselves which person means the most to us, we often find it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness: that is a friend who cares.” -Henri Nouwen, from "Out of Solitude" What gets in the way of our doing this? Brainstorm as a whole group? Our own fears, for ourselves and for others. loistonkin.com

Growing Around Grief

“I just got on with my life” “So my 30s were almost a grieving time for me, where I started to have to prepare myself for not having kids. At the same time, I just kind of got on with my life. That whole ten-year period was a difficult time, off and on.” Bridget (44) Mindlfulness is a practice of being aware of and in the present moment; of consciously bringing our attention WITHOUT JUDGEMENT to what is happening in this moment. It includes our awareness of others, and of our own responses. It includes our physical responses, and our thoughts, and the ways these are linked. “When we honestly ask ourselves which person means the most to us, we often find it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness: that is a friend who cares.” -Henri Nouwen, from "Out of Solitude" What gets in the way of our doing this? Brainstorm as a whole group? Our own fears, for ourselves and for others. loistonkin.com

Active Grieving (Attig, 1996) Loss is choiceless; grieving is not Grief is an active process; not a passive one We can make choices about how we respond to the losses of our lives.

”We are not trying to prevent stress, but to promote competence.” Phyllis Silverman

Developing competence What are the main sources of stress for the person right now? How can he or she best be supported to improve their competence in dealing with these? (Adapted from Corr)

What helps? Think about your own experience, or that of people you work with. What helps when we are grieving? How do you encourage the identification and development of helpful strategies in your interactions with grieving people? loistonkin.com

What helps? Remembering, rituals, holding the past close/’what lives on’   Distracting/taking a break/nurturing/exercising Getting a larger perspective/‘spirituality’/inspiration /being in nature Expressing: talking/artmaking/thinking/reflecting/ sharing with others/reading/hearing stories.

Using your strengths (Golden 1996, 2000) Are you active? Use your body, tackle a project Are you good with your mind? Plan and set goals. Get information Are you a people person? Volunteer somewhere. Work and talk with others in the same boat. Do you like to make things? Make something to bring pleasure to yourself and others Are you a quiet person? Write a journal or blog, take walks, listen to music, give yourself time to reflect.

A support person can: Help people to see that grief is an active process which requires them to meet challenges Support people to use coping strategies that work for them, and to develop new ones Motivate people to resist the attractions of grief Listen, suggest, rehearse, inspire, comfort, console, debrief, normalise, acknowledge, validate… Based on Attig, T. “How We Grieve” 1996)

Growing Around Grief “As we grieve, we struggle to give new sense and direction to the continuing stories of our lives”. (Attig 1996, p.149)

Growing Around Grief “The central challenge as we grieve is learning to love in a new way, to love someone in separation, at least as long as we walk this earth. Nothing is more difficult. Nothing is more important. Nothing is more rewarding.” (Attig 2000, p. 282)

Growing Around Grief “people faced with change need to let go of redundant assumptions about the world if they are to learn to live” (Parkes 2010, p.20)

Acceptance doesn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, mean passive resignation. Quite the opposite. It takes a huge amount of fortitude and motivation to accept what is–especially if you don't like it–and then work wisely and effectively as best you possibly can with the circumstances you find yourself in and with the resources at your disposal, both inner and outer, to mitigate, heal, redirect, and change what can be changed. (Kabbat-Zinn. 2005)

Questions to discuss How has this experience changed your view of yourself? Of the world? What have you learned from this experience, or this person? What lives on in you from this person/experience? What do you think your (person who died) might say about you now? Might suggest you should do now? Would say about this situation? What were some of the things that he/she loved about you? Was proud of? What places or activities make you feel close to him/her? What would you like to do now to remember him/her? In what ways do you grieve differently from other people in your family? What part do your beliefs about life, God, and what happens when we die play in all of this for you?

Companioning the Bereaved (Wolfelt 2005 ) Honouring the spirit, rather than focusing on the intellect Curiosity, rather than expertise, believing we ‘know best’ Learning from others, rather than teaching them Walking alongside, rather than leading or being led Being still, rather than frantic movement forward Discovering gifts of sacred silence, rather than filling up every moment with words It’s about our attitude, and ort presence.

Listening with the heart, rather than analysing with the head Bearing witness to the struggles of others, rather than judging or directing those struggles Being present to another's pain, rather than taking away the pain Respecting disorder and confusion, rather than imposing order and logic Going with another into the soul's wilderness, rather than thinking you are responsible for finding the way out

Summary: Implications for practice Information about grieving and loss Acknowledgement of the layers of loss Opportunities to tell the story of the loss, to acknowledge its reality, to make meaning; to grow around grief Encouragement to identify coping strategies and to develop new ones Presence: our willingness and capacity to be present

The rewards of our work We witness people’s fragility, but the also the resilience of the spirit. We witness the human capacity for love, kindness, forgiveness, and generosity. We see everyday heroism manifested in the lives of ‘ordinary’ people, and are encouraged and inspired to find it in ourselves.