prstoronto.com - Psychotherapy Referral Service

Grief

Grief is our response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which there is a deep bond or attachment. Every culture specifies a response to grieving suggesting particular rituals, styles of dress, or emotional expression.

The "work of grieving" is both emotional and physical, and can evoke both conscious and unconscious processes. Once the work of grieving is complete, the subject is gradually able, within a period of time that cannot be shortened, to come to terms with the lost object.

Extreme pain, denial of reality, hallucination of the lost person and varying degrees of awareness of the loss are experienced in sequence. Eventually mental changes occur that allow attachment to new objects to develop. Therapy can often be a help by allowing someone who is grieving to experience with another, in their own time and in their own way, each of the stages of the mourning process.