{"id":15337,"date":"2012-11-08T11:00:34","date_gmt":"2012-11-08T19:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=15337"},"modified":"2016-11-17T10:10:23","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T18:10:23","slug":"grief-mourning-and-loss-unhealthy-ways-of-coping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/unhealthy-ways-of-coping-with-grief-mourning-and-loss-1108125","title":{"rendered":"Grief, Mourning, and Loss: Unhealthy Ways of Coping"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Man<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about grief, mourning, and loss<\/a> a lot lately. It shows up as a theme in my work as a psychotherapist all the time. I\u2019ve also been studying the literature on methods of providing grief counseling and grief therapy. What I realize is that my sub-specialty in this area is not limited to working with individuals who have experienced the death of a loved one. It is more far-reaching than that. Judith Viorst wrote a wonderful book, Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow<\/em>, in the mid-1980s in which she described the losses we experience along the life cycle. It\u2019s a must-read for people who are unfamiliar with it.<\/p>\n

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Find a Therapist for Grief<\/a><\/h2>\n\t
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I would venture to say that most of the work we as psychotherapists and spiritual counselors do is about coping with loss. We help our clients grieve about their losses, whether it\u2019s loss of youth, money, job, socioeconomic status, or friends. They need to be helped to grieve the loss of hopes and dreams. They even grieve the loss of fantasies and illusions, although much of this happens unconsciously. In this case, our job as psychotherapists and counselors is to help them recognize that they are in mourning and provide tools to cope. The idea is that grief takes up a lot of psychic space in our beings, and it is only by coming to terms with our losses that we create room for the new.<\/p>\n

The focus of this article is how many people typically grieve. The ways\u2014which are not healthy\u2014include:<\/p>\n