What is grief management?
Grief management is a type of psychotherapy that helps you cope with the emotions and feelings you have in response to a significant loss. Grief management isn’t a cure, but it can help you develop coping skills to deal with your feelings and prevent them from interfering with your ability to function in your day-to-day life.
What are the signs that I need grief management?
Grief is a normal human emotion that’s also highly personal. Your experience and reaction to loss are unique. Some of the common symptoms of grief include:
- Reduced concentration
- Focusing on your loss
- Indecisiveness
- Feeling isolated
- Increased nightmares
- Self-destructive thoughts
- Changes in your sleep
- Changes in appetite or weight
- Fatigue
- Muscle tension
- Becoming easily startled
- Increased irritability or agitation
- Avoidance and distraction behaviors
- Crying
- Lost interest in activities
- Substance abuse
While the saying that only time heals grief is a cliche, it’s common to learn how to live with your loss as time passes. However, you might find that your grief interferes with your ability to function or disturbs your relationships with friends, family, and acquaintances. If this is the case, you might need help coping with your grief.
What should I expect during grief management?
During your grief management sessions, Dr. Kaushansky helps you move through the stages of grief and come to terms with your loss. Depending on your needs, he can implement different strategies. For example, you may benefit from talking about your loss. It can help you understand what happened and develop strategies for dealing with memories that trigger your feelings.
Dr. Kaushansky can also help you learn to accept your feelings. Whether you’re sad, angry, or relieved, your emotions shouldn’t be ignored or dismissed. Learning to accept your feelings can reduce secondary emotions such as shame or guilt about what you’re feeling or not feeling.
