I Chose The Griefshare Support Group

Grief is defined as a type of emotional or mental suffering from a loss, sorrow, or regret (Dictionary.com, LLC, 2010). Grief affects people of all ages, races, and sexes around the world. Approximately, 36% of the world’s population does or has suffered from grief and only a mere 10% of these people will seek out help (Theravive, 2009). Once a person is suffering from grief it is important to receive treatment. All too often, people ignore grief resulting in deep depression, substance abuse, and other disorders (Theravive, 2009). Grief counseling is very common and can be very helpful to a person in need of assistance. Grief counseling provides the support, understanding, and

This paper examines the implications of grief, bereavement and disenfranchised grief. Grief in response to a loss is a unique experience and is expressed distinctively by every individual. It is helpful to have models that outline the stages of grief that need to be experienced in order to achieve acceptance. However, their utility is limited by the reality that grief is immeasurably complex and individualized. Veterans and children are two groups at risk of developing disenfranchised grief. Therefore, it will be important for nurses to be able to identify those suffering with disenfranchised grief or other forms of maladaptive grief so appropriate intervention may be employed.

The groups I helped co-facilitate focused on death-loss for children and their families. I would help children process their grief through checking-in with their feelings, reading stories, interacting with them in play, and engaging in conversations about these experiences. Many times I was surprised by the levels of understanding and

During the meeting I listened to the mother to understand her concerns about events which had happened to the family. I was empathetic, yet remained professional and did not make judgemental comments.

I chose the group as an alternative to an addiction group that had a general idea similar to AA. When the group was canceled for the evening, I was offered to observe the 12Stone Care grief group as a second choice, held at the same time on November 16th. The 12Stone Care grief group provided valuable support to members and non-members of the church alike, and the sole requirement was to have lost a loved one. L.H., the widowed leader of the group, lost her husband to cancer ten years ago and started the semester-long grief group in 2013 in order to encourage others who are or have been in the grieving process (L.H., personal communication, November 16, 2015). Her goal in 12Stone Care is a “prayer is that [one] will find freedom from [their] struggles and healing in Christ” (12Stone Church,

Death is a universally experienced phenomenon. In the United States alone, over 2.6 million people die each year (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). For practitioners, it is of utmost importance to better understand the process of grief to develop better interventions for bereaved individuals.

1There is an identified need for a community level hospital intervention that will focus on adolescents dealing with grief and loss. The public health groups in hospitals are aimed at disease prevention and health promotion for adults and families who are at high-risk. These groups only focus on members who have high-risk health conditions and risky lifestyle behaviors, but they do not address the idea of death resulting from these high-risk behaviors. Clearly, these public health interventions do not target adolescents who share the commonality of grief and loss. These groups ignore the effects of death and the role it can play in determining one’s actions. Both the public health group and the grief and loss

The Cokesbury United Methodist Church grief support group follows a thirteen-week curriculum from GriefShare, however, new members can join in at any time as each week has a “self-contained” lesson. The topic for the week I attendee focused on the “why” of losing a loved one. Through following this curriculum, the group seeks to equip members with “essentials to recover from the hurt of grief and loss.” (GriefShare, n.d.) The group focuses on helping members rebuild their lives after they experience tremendous loss and grief through facing the challenge together. (GriefShare, n.d.)

Morrie’s wife kept his funeral small and only permitted the individuals whom Morrie wanted to surround him on his perfect day, to mourn with her on the day of the funeral. It is important to note that those different individuals will have different grieving types, and may not be able to successfully mourn—like Worden suggests. A support group with the individuals who attended the funeral could possibly be beneficial, because each individual will need to eventually readjust to the world, however some may have a hard time reaching that stage. Complicated grief cannot be ruled out, because prolonged grief symptoms are always a possibility when mourning. Grief support programs are offered to individuals in order to help reach healthy stages of mourning, to link individuals to community resources, and to support each other (Wintermeyer-Pingel, Murphy, & Hammelef 2013). The recordings that Mitch now owned may be beneficial for Morrie’s wife to successfully mourn or recollect thoughts about her husband. This group would be based off of a strengths based perspective. The goal of the group is to help each mourn by focusing on the positive aspects of the life lived by Morrie and the relationship that he had with each group member, personally. The group will allow each individual to celebrate Morrie’s life and death. The group will be given time to reminisce, and

    As of late, we’ve become familiarized with the concept of hospice through guest speakers and readings (Class notes, 2016). Through Descendants we learned the importance of advanced care directives and widened our EOL conversation to focus more on family than the patient (Payne). Through another guest speaker and lecture we also talked about expressive therapy and its imperativeness on patient and family care (Class notes, 2016). During our week not in class, we read articles on grief, coping, and social support and it’s importance to communication at the end-of-life, additionally, we saw the five stages of grief after watching the Scrubs episode (Class notes, 2016). Lastly, we closed with potpourri week in which we learned about the different religions/cultures and their views on the afterlife (Class notes, 2016).

**I attended a Tuesday afternoon grief support group at cancer services in January. I felt that this group was very beneficial because it still felt like the holidays. The group I attended was very full. The group consisted of people who were age 50 and up. There were probably around 20 individuals there. There were more females than males; however I was surprised at the amount of men who attended the group. Majority attended because of loss of spouse, there was one lady who was adjusting to the loss of her son. The group dynamic was very respectful, a lot of input, and genuine feelings of care towards each other. They appeared to have developed into their own little family. A lot of people expressed emotion, lots of tears this meeting.

Grief counseling, individual counseling, grief support groups are beneficial services that assist the client with grief, loss, depression, and other emotions that comes with loss. Speaking with a religious leader, participating in an extracurricular activity, communicating with family, and medical examination are different avenues that are also helpful with coping with grief, stress, depression, and fatigue.

Grief is the act following the loss of a loved one. While grief and bereavement are normal occurrences, the grief process is a social construct of how someone should behave. The acceptable ways that people grieve change because of this construct. For a time it was not acceptable to grieve; today, however, it is seen as a necessary way to move on from death (Scheid, 2011).The grief process has been described as a multistage event, with each stage lasting for a suggested amount of time to be considered “normal” and reach resolution. The beginning stage of grief is the immediate shock, disbelief, and denial lasting from hours to weeks (Wambach, 1985). The middle stage is the acute mourning phase that can include somatic and emotional turmoil. This stage includes acknowledging the event and processing it on various levels, both mentally and physically. The final stage is a period of

Altilio, t.,& Otis-green, S. (2011). Oxford textbook of palliative social work. Oxford University Press USA. Pg. g380

Grief groups will be led by two facilitators, at least one of which will be a trained therapist. All facilitators will undergo training at the center via a proprietary training program developed by the Executive Director. Facilitators will come from three sources: