Essay On Loss Experience In Counselling

Over the course of a lifetime, humans are exposed to multiplicity of loss experiences; whilst some of these experiences manifests through the natural order of life and are considered pivotal to the development of an individual, some experiences like the sudden death of a family member, divorce, and terminal illness often possesses the power to destabilise an individual and alter their life course. Although these experiences may be universal across various cultures, the ability of a person to cope with any loss and navigate through their grief experience is distinctive. In counselling, to assist clients circumnavigate through this difficult phase counsellors often depend on the various models of grief, both to assess the clients and employ interventions …show more content…
During this period of bereavement although I was surrounded by my immediate family and my husband, the rituals and logistics encroached all our time and energy restricting the time I had to interact with my husband. There were intermittent periods were the feelings of being isolated and intense sadness would emerge manifesting itself as anger and irritation on the task at hand or people I am interacting with. This process could be related as periods of oscillation between feelings of being completely in control to periods where I lacked self-control. Based on attachment theory, Stroebe & Schut (1999) conceptualise this model of bereavement as dual process model in which an individual processes and adapts to their losses by alternating between two conflicting process; “loss orientation” process and “restoration orientation” process. They postulate that in loss orientation the individual processes the grief of having lost a loved one by dealing with feelings of sadness, anger or guilt, and seek respite from grieving by doing restoration orientated tasks like dealing with the practicalities of the life and tending to logistical and environmental needs (Stroebe & Schut,