Has something happened in your life that has been taken away from you ?
Bereavement is a term often used when someone has died but it is not limited to it.
Bereavement can describe many losses in life of a change in circumstances, such as a relationship break up, a job loss, a diagnosis. Working together we can consider the stages of grief and understand how it is for you.
Making meaning from loss
There maybe times when you struggle to understand why something has happened. Counselling may help to try to understand what happened and why, helping to grieve.
Caring loss
Caring for someone may not have been something that you had foreseen as being part of your life. For example:
A parent who discovers that their child has a long-term illness, disability or learning difficulty is likely to have to try to manage their feelings around the loss of the healthy child that they may have foreseen they would have.
A partner is unlikely to have foreseen that their loved one would develop a long-term illness or a disability due to an accident during their time together.
A son or daughter might understand that there might be caring duties ahead for their parents but the reality of how it impacts their life might have been harder to foresee.
I think it can be helpful to have some space to recognise the change in circumstances and the loss that it brings. Looking at the loss and working through it can be helpful as loss tends to have many elements to it, working through these can help to reorganise life and move forward. In effect it is a form of bereavement, and it is helpful to have the opportunity to grieve the loss.
Counselling offers the support to work through the difficult feelings attached to the loss that you may be experiencing.