1st Edition
Bereavement Counseling Pastoral Care for Complicated Grieving
Get a unique insight into health, bereavement, and healing!
Bereavement Counseling: Pastoral Care for Complicated Grieving is a practical guide to the assessment and treatment of complicated grief responses, using a pastoral approach that combines clinical and spiritual care. The book addresses current theory, observations, and experience, and examines changing approaches and developing standards of practice. The author, an ordained minister with an extensive background in pastoral counseling, integrates spirituality into the grieving process by focusing on the partnership between spirituality and healing, the resources of spiritual practices, and the functions of counseling and spiritual/pastoral psychotherapy.
By providing usable treatment strategies, sharing standard interventions, and promoting technical skill for caregivers, Bereavement Counseling: Pastoral Care for Complicated Grieving places sustained emphasis on giving voice to grief and recovery. The author draws from more than 20 years’ experience in ministry, teaching, supervision, consultation, and therapy to present stories, vignettes, and poetry that give depth and life to the grieving process. These vignettes provide a unique insight into health, bereavement, and healing and create a living context for maintaining a person-centered focus that promotes meaning and leads to positive outcomes. The book provides templates as assessment and treatment planning aids and includes an extensive bibliography of up-to-date journal articles that reflect the latest research in the field.
Topics addressed in Bereavement Counseling: Pastoral Care for Complicated Grieving include:
- universal grief processes and responses
- dysfunctional grieving
- therapies and treatment priorities
- reorganization and recovery
- how perceptions, thoughts, and belief influence care
- and much more!
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- A Tale of Two Sisters
- The Desire to Know More
- Beginning Assumptions
- The Larger Context
- Aims and Purpose
- Challenges
- Sources and Approach
- Overview
- Chapter 1. Universal Grief Processes and Responses
- In Every Life There is Gain and Loss
- A Relational/Contextual View of Attachments and Loss
- Types of Losses
- The Universal, Normal Grief Process
- A Loss and Recovery Model of Grief
- Is the Grief Process the Same for Everyone?
- Grief Trajectories and Variations Within the Normal Grief Response
- Assessment of a Person’s Current Grieving Process
- Management of the Normal Grieving Process
- Summary
- Chapter 2. When Grief Becomes Complicated
- Stories of Complicated Grief
- Is Grief Becoming More Complex?
- A Definition of Complicated Grief
- Stage-Specific Complications
- General Risk Factors
- People Who are Particularly At Risk
- Assessing Complicated Grief Trajectories
- More Experiences of Complicated Grieving
- Summary
- Chapter 3. Dysfunctional Grieving
- The Initial Inquiry
- Labeling Grief Responses
- Locus of Impairment
- Severity of Impairment
- Dysfunctional Grieving Criteria
- Individuals Who are Particularly at Risk
- Strategies for Challenging Dysfunctional Behavior
- Summary
- Chapter 4. The Spiritual Side of Grief and Loss
- Definition of Spirituality
- Religious Spirituality
- Spirituality and Wellness
- Spiritual Activity
- The Spiritual Component of Grief Work
- Experiences of Spiritually Based Grief Complications
- Spiritually Based Dysfunctional Grief
- Individuals Particularly at Risk for Spiritually Based Complications
- Stages of Spiritual Grief
- Summary
- Chapter 5. How Perceptions, Thoughts, and Beliefs Influence Care
- Subjectivity, Vulnerability, and Professional Bias
- Recognizing the Relational Feedback Loop
- Common Myths and Misperceptions Concerning Grief and Loss
- Problematic Implications
- Recognizing Critical Care Points
- Using Perceptions and Beliefs to Enhance Care
- The Role of Consultation
- Summary
- Chapter 6. Therapies and Treatment Priorities
- Types of Treatment
- Loss-Focused Therapies
- Adjunct Therapies
- Longer-Term Grief Therapies
- Multiple Therapies
- Establishing Treatment Priorities
- A Holistic Treatment Process
- Summary
- Chapter 7. Positive Strategies and Helpful Interventions
- General Grief Resolution Strategies
- Strategies for Telling the Grief Story
- Strategies for Developing a Sense of Self
- Strategies for Developing a Sense of Relationship
- Strategies for Creating a Sense of Meaning
- Strategies for Building Memories
- Strategies for Recognizing Continuity of Being
- Expressing Grief in Other Ways
- Turning Around Unhelpful Grief Responses
- Summary
- Chapter 8. Reorganization and Reclaiming One’s Life
- Reorganization Involves Change
- Motivators
- Decisions to Move Ahead
- Challenges to Reorganization
- Developing a Lifelong Habit of Learning
- Reclaiming Life
- Appendix A. Universal Grief Response
- Appendix B. Possible Complications Surrounding Significant Loss
- Appendix C. Identification of Risk Factors That May Lead to Complicated and Dysfunctional Grieving
- Appendix D. Grief Trajectory Worksheet: Complicated/Dysfunctional Grief
- Appendix E. Grief Response Service Wheel
- Appendix F. Severity of Grief Response: Impairment Flow Sheet Template
- Appendix G. Dysfunctional Grieving Criteria: Symptoms and Behavior That Can Indicate Dysfunctional Grieving
- Bibliography
- Index
- Reference Notes Included
Biography
Harold G. Koenig, Junietta B. Mccall
