EMDR and the many faces of grief

Grief is never simple. The human condition forces us to face loss at many junctures of our life. For example, even major change can be perceived as some type of loss. Loss of security, loss of role or identity, and loss of face are other aspects of grief not always recognized. Most significant is the loss of loved ones, whether sudden or expected. Grief may also be related to one's own mortality through illness. Grief can occur through loss of function, or through a choice, such as abortion or other surgical procedures. Working through the stages of grief must be handled sensitively by caregivers. When grief is prolonged, pathological grief may ensue. What causes grief to persist beyond a "normal" range of adjustment? It is important to explore the origins of distress that may be hidden beneath the grief reactions. Childhood losses, trauma, abuse, abandonment or perceived abandonment, and unfulfilled relationships may activate an unremitting cycle of grief. When children are helped to process loss at their developmental level, repair can begin. They may need continued re-evaluation at later developmental stages to re-incorporate the loss. For adults, unresolved grief may emerge as hostility, somatic symptoms, significant depression, or continued emotional pain when a current event triggers the past loss or memory of the lost person. In addition, present time losses, although worked on, may remain emotionally debilitating to the client because of unrecognized associations of hurts from the past. For example, a client is unable to process the grief over the loss of his baby. Through EMDR he was able to recognize the identification with his own child self and the grief he carried from abuse by a grandfather, separation from his father, and lack of protection by his mother. Another client, a middle-aged woman, began to resolve her unremitting sadness over her elderly mother's death when the associations to her own childhood illness, which caused her to be separated from her mother as an infant, were recognized and processed. EMDR has been highly successful in processing not only "simple" grief but persistent unremitting grief, as well as resolving the stages of blocked grief, such as denial or guilt or anger. Cases representing loss at different stages of the life cycle will be discussed, as well as the value of EMDR as a major aid to healing in association with other therapies, such as family of origin, inner child, psychodynamic, Gestalt, and hypnosis in resolving the components of pathological grief or complicated bereavement.

Conference

English

Phyllis Klaus

Klaus, P. (1997, July). EMDR and the many faces of grief. Presentation at the 2nd EMDR International Association Conference, San Francisco, CA