Blogs For You
I write blogs because I’ve run across therapists who had no idea what to say to a widow or grieving person, or what dementia looks like. The collective “wisdom” about grief is not wisdom, and most of it is not research supported or intuitive. It’s simply what we have been told. Most grieving people will not go to a support group or a therapist. It’s really hard to get people into the help they need. What makes this worse is the well-meaning, ill equipped therapists who don’t understand grief, who, because of their lack of experience or ignorance make it intolerable for a grieving person to ever return to therapy or reach out for support again. Therapists miss dementia because they do not know what they are seeing and hearing and misdiagnose when they could be part of truly helping a family get the help they need.
We need to change the knowledge.
We need to blow up the rules.
We need clinicians who can talk knowledgably about the dying process, understand how to address grief, and never, ever tell a client that they are going to grieve forever.
Do you really want them to?
Please come back here often- I blog about all of it, and more!
Congrats to Dog the Bounty Hunter
Congrats to Dog the Bounty Hunter- Breaking the widow and widower rules isn’t easy.
My news alerts just went off- with wedding bells. Dog is getting remarried. He and Francie Frane, herself a widow, have found love in each other’s arms. I am happy for them- and anyone who finds love again after loss.
Emotional trauma of miscarriage on men is often overlooked
Pregnancy losses a huge loss and the grief deserves recognition for all the parents.
Losses and more losses…
It has been a long seven days, hasn’t it? As a grief therapist and self-confessed news junkie, it has been non-stop for me.
All the 2020 Thanksgiving with Dementia
It’s only a few days to the fourth Thursday in November, and here in the States that usually means the rush into Thanksgiving and then tumbling into Christmas or Hanukkah. That’s enough as it is, but when your family includes dementia it means really looking at what your loved one can handle right in this moment in terms of holidays.
The night before I had major surgery I will admit I was nervous
The night before I had major surgery I will admit I was nervous. Sleep was not going to happen. “Relax” was not in my vocabulary. And...
Sometimes the emotions won’t come- managing the pandemic and loss in the movies
While we are experiencing the current pandemic in a variety of places and situation, some of the impact it’s having on many of us is almost a sense of not being able to be in touch with emotions about loss after so many deaths and so much news, and feeling almost alone in the process because we are not living the lives we normally do. We are not seeing people, we can’t hug, we can’t do social time.
Amanda Kloots Pens Letter to Help Her Son Remember His Dad, Nick Cordero
Therapist Jill A. Johnson-Young, LCSW, told SheKnows that it’s important for adults to talk with children about the lost loved one, rather than pretend they never existed.
Ella Bleu Travolta’s Grief Will Be ‘Layered’ After Losing Mom Kelly Preston & Brother Jett, Experts Say
Johnson-Young also stressed the need for privacy during these challenging times. Fortunately, Travolta and Preston have done a tremendous job at keeping their children out of the public eye over the years.
When your client dies: What do you do? Our new world of COVID
You have a client you’ve seen for some time. It was a weekly appointment, and then you went on with them online. The relationship was never broken....
Graduation Lost: To the Class of 2020
This is the week the Governor of California called off the rest of the school year. Many states are following. This is not just the year of COVID....
How it should be when someone is dying
What you should expect from hospice, and what support families should have.
New Year’s – The last holiday hurdle for grievers
It’s the last few days of the year, and everywhere I look on social media and television I see the lists of who died and how much people will miss...