Counselling for Grief, Loss & Bereavement in Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula
As a professional and qualified counsellor, Louise Goodwin offers counselling in grief and bereavement for adults, teenagers and children in the Mornington Peninsula and Frankston areas.
Counselling and dealing with grief
Grief and bereavement are normal responses to the loss of a loved one. These emotions can also be felt deeply with the loss of a relationship or even a particular aspect of yourself, such as your health or career.
Your feelings of grief can be worse if your loss is unexpected, such as a sudden death or suicide, or the loss of your marriage and family. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, all of us are different and handle emotional loss in different ways.
Even with professional counselling, it is fair to say that no two people will ever experience grief and loss in the same way, so sometimes it is hard for others to understand the depth of your grief. With the unexpected death of a spouse for example, even if a close friend or relative has experienced the same type of loss in their life – you can both grieve in completely different ways and take diverse paths to recovery.
Counselling and the 5 stages of grief
There are 5 stages of grief described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
However, we do not travel through these 5 stages in order and sometimes we get stuck in one or two of them. In Denial, we avoid evidence of the loss, in Anger we are less tolerant and moody with people around us, in Bargaining we think that if we did this or that - maybe our loss will not be real, and in Depression we find ourselves stuck in overwhelming sadness.
When these feelings don't ease, you may need counselling to help you to process the pain and sadness you are experiencing, so you can process the grief
How to self-soothe during the grieving process
If you have experienced a death or bereavement in your life recently, then it is likely that you feel numb, in shock, depressed and angry this is normal and counselling can provide strategies to cope with these feelings.
Support Networks: Having a support network of friends, colleagues and relatives, who you can turn to for comfort and understanding, will make a lot of difference to your recovery. You might not believe that this network will help initially, but in 6 or 12 months’ time when you look back, you will understand how important your support network was in overcoming your grief.
Pleasant activities: It is also important to allocate time to activities that you enjoy and make you happy. You might not feel as happy doing these activities today, because of your sadness, but focussing on them can be comforting, helping to bring positive feelings back into your life. It is OK to do enjoyable things when you are grieving and you do not need to feel guilty about that, however you may feel so guilty that this may prevent you from doing those activities that normally make you happy. Counselling can help you return to a more normal life.
Don’t ignore your feelings: It is important that you recognise your emotions and not lock them away. Your emotions need to be acknowledged and dealt with – but this can take time. Try not to sit and focus on your loss and grief, instead acknowledge your loss and your feelings and allow yourself time to grieve, it is OK to cry and in fact healthy to process grief.
When to seek counselling: If you are unable to function normally in your daily life, because you are overwhelmed by feelings of loss, grief, anger or denial, then it is time to ask for professional help.
Louise Goodwin is a highly experienced grief counsellor with a professional practice in the Frankston and Mornington Peninsula areas.