Learn to deal with Grief

There are many different responses to grief, which are totally normal, and doctors, counsellors and psychiatrists may be reluctant to diagnose a person as mentally ill during a bereavement. They may provide support to help the person grieve.

A Grief Counsellor can help the mourning process by allowing a person to move through the stages of grief in a relationship that is supportive and confidential. The Grief Counsellor will try to help the person to accept their loss and talk about it. They will encourage them to identify and express their feelings of anger, guilt, sadness, helplessness and anxiety.

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Nature and Scope of Grief and Bereavement
2. Stages of Grief
3. Grief and Children
4. Grief and adolescents
5. Adjustment to Bereavement
6. Abnormal Grief
7. Preparing for Grief and Bereavement
8. Future outlook and Long-term Grief

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

• Describe the nature and scope of grief and bereavement counselling and individuals' attitudes to grief.
• To identify through continuing exploration, the meaning and responses of a wide range of loss situations, taking cultural variations into account.
• To describe the different ways that children may respond to grief and to develop appropriate strategies for helping them to cope.
• Determine the different ways that adolescents may respond to grief and to examine how these perspectives have translated into counselling practice
• Describe the different means through which individuals are able to adjust to loss and to consider other options available to them.
• Describe when an individual's response to grief may be considered abnormal and to discuss methods of assisting such individuals.
• Define the different ways of preparing for grief and bereavement and to consider social, cultural and psychological perspectives.
• Describe separation, loneliness, the effects of long-term grief and long-term counselling support strategies.

• List euphemisms for dying.
• Consider factors that can help set the conditions for the good death
• Discuss the ways that a wake or funeral service can be of help to mourners.
• Discuss contemporary attitudes toward death in society and how they affect the treatment of dying.
• Describe the stages of grief.
• Explain why people pass through different stages at different times and not in a particular order.
• List mechanisms available to help a counsellor support someone who is grieving.
• Describe ways in which children might respond to grief.
• Explain why different children respond to grief in different ways.
• Describe counselling strategies for supporting the grieving child.
• Research how adolescents respond to grief.
• Outline counselling strategies for supporting the grieving adolescent.
• List suicide prevention strategies.
• Explain in general how we adjust to loss.
• List some dangers of loss.
• Describe some alternatives for loss recovery.
• Research how bereavement affects survivors.
• Describe some abnormal responses to grief, and how they are determined to be abnormal.