Twycross's Five Stages Of Grief Counseling

Everyone experiences a period of bereavement at some point during their lives following the death of a friend or loved one. Grief is associated with the feelings of sadness, anger, anxiety, guilt and regret. It is a reaction to any form of loss. “Acute grief is characterized by recurrent episodes of severe anxiety and psychological pain…” (Twycross 77). Grief is more than an emotional experience; however, extreme experiences of grief can become life-threatening. Working through the grieving process is neither a short-term activity nor one that can be rushed, not everyone experiences the same stages or the same order. “Counselling should be practised within a recognized code of ethics. This should include maintaining confidentiality as well
as other issues” (Davis 56). Treatment is focused on making sense of the loss and on helping the person move on. Davis also states that grieving should have specific goals (56). The goals you set when counselling a bereaved person are important and should be taken seriously. “Freud (1917) believed that interference with grieving can be harmful” (Kellner, Rada, and Winslow 186). There’s no doubt practitioners have good intentions, some doctors believe patients are stronger than they know. Dealing with your depression or grief on your own can make you stronger for the days to come. Although Latta believes that reaching out to others around you will help you cope with the grief and anger (17). Many different doctors and physicians have different views on dealing with the bereaved, although most would say having help with your grief is a more efficient way rather than dealing with it on your own. Twycross acknowledges patients being able to talk and work though to a positive acceptance; they’re allowed to express their fears and anxieties also while being respected as an individual (182). Some doctors are unable to expose their hearts to their patients; they’re cruel and there just to get the job done. Some doctors form a bond with their patients and sometimes they get caught up in the grief. Klagsbrun explains that having a built-in barrier allow them to return to a kind of distance between themselves and their patients, doing so allows them to rationalize the distance by thinking their doing good (164).
There are typically five stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and sometimes acceptance.
“These pangs of grief begin within a few hours or days of bereavement and usually reach a peak of severity within five to fourteen days” (Twycross 177). In most cases it usually takes a few days for the grief to take place, although not everyone's the same so the stages may be out of order depending on the individual. Occasionally, the first stage of grief is anger. “Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from the inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed up. But hatred is a curve blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves” (Albom 149). At times people tend to handle their grief by turning it into anger, as a result they take it out on the people around them. Usually, they don’t intend to release the weight in that way it’s just the only way they know how to cope. “Grief maybe expressed as anger, self-reproach, with guilt and loss of self-esteem, pining or depression” (Davis 88). On occasion people try to mask their true feeling by covering them up with other emotions. Davis also explains that anger and guilt typically go together, people may blame themselves for taking their anger out on others around them and see themselves as a burden (89). Not only do people take their anger out on others around them, they take it out on themselves. They develop extreme self-hatred and occasionally develop suicidal thoughts. Klagsbrun illustrates a group he coordinated, a woman felt she wasn’t enough to be alive and be receiving help from others; the group focused on life and what it was like facing the routine problems of life (167). Dealing with your emotions on your own can be challenging and a possibility of making things worse, being able to express the way you feel and compare to others going through the same situation can be very
helpful.
All doctors will demonstrate differences of opinions; it will constaltly be an ongoing debate. Unfortunately this leaves the individual stuck in the middle of which one is right. “Only a few would agree with Benjamin Rush’s advice that the best management of grief is a prescription of ‘liberal doses of opium’ (1835)” (Kellner, Rada, and Winslow 185). Klagsbrun declares that once you prescribing drugs to help someone remain alive, you have to offer a support system for friends and family's to learn to tolerate all that the patient says and demands (166). At times taking medication while grieving can cause you to become an addict, which in some cases can make depression worse. Medication that is prescribed to a grieving individual can cause them to become dependent on the drug, rather than having a more natural coping mechanism. “Bowen comments that it has sometimes been suggested that to give antidepressants to someone bereave is to run against the course of nature…” (Kellner, Rada, and Winslow 186). Klagsbrun explains the purpose of using drugs is to help the individual stay alive and to remain in touch with families, friends and feelings (166). No doctor would ever intend to harm their patients. Some simply have different processes of treating their patients. Klagsbrun also mentions the reasoning of medication is meant to relieve pain for patients; to avoid crippling depression and anxiety (164). The medication given to a bereaved person acts as a mask to cover the grieving process. The drug prys into the patient's brain and erases the grief they were feeling by replacing it with other emotions. Twycross notices that good terminal care could nor will ever erase grief, it still has to be coped with (182).