GwenAmes

Grief Therapy and Bereavement Therapy in Children of Divorce

 Clinical Topics, Staff Articles, Therapy For Children & Teens  Comments Off
Jan 122012
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Divorce is a complicated process for adults and for their children. Although grief and bereavement are terms normally associated with the process of dealing with feelings related to death, children of divorce go through a process that mirrors the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Yet children in general are much less likely to understand what they feel or why, and generalized fears are common.  Additionally, the losses felt by divorce are often compounded by moves, the loss of friends, changes in school, changes in extended family relationships, and changes in financial well-being. Is it any wonder counselors see these children in so much distress?

Adults pass through the stages of grief by using words to describe their pain and disappointment. Depending on age, children may need help in understanding new feeling states such as ‘insecure’, ‘abandoned’, ‘relieved’, ‘disappointed’, ‘jealous’, or ‘confused’. Since children often act out what they cannot understand or express, many children begin to act out, or act out worse than before.

Generalized fears are common in children of divorce. To children, parents provide a total sense of security. Divorce may make them feel the rug has been pulled from underneath them as they discover their world can change in new and unpredictable ways. Children also find security in their surroundings and with their things. Children of divorce may lose control of their favorite things, or be unable to cart them back and forth between homes as desired. With so many changes, some children regress in terms of their behavior and may become clingy, lose progress in toilet training, be unable to sleep alone, or begin to have nightmares.

As for the 5 stages of grief in children of divorce:

Denial in children may simply be a disbelief that divorce could happen to their parents. When fighting between parents is common, children may claim a sense of relief — “at least they won’t be fighting anymore”.

Bargaining for children may be demonstrated through fantasy beliefs that their parents will somehow get back together, and some children may try to facilitate reunions.

Depression comes from the loss of the parent-child relationship as it once was. Children cannot see the absent parent anytime they wish. They may grief life as it was, and miss horseplay, help with school work, watching television shows or sports, or bedtime rituals. Sadness can be great, and may interfere with school. When it is severe and lasts longer than 2 months, a child’s grief may be turning into clinical depression. Medication at this point may help reduce a child’s suffering.

Anger may be difficult for a child to admit or express. Not only are children taught anger is bad, but doubly so if it is against their parents. Some children actually fear that expressing their anger will damage their relationship with an absent parent. Anger is warranted though. After all it is not the child’s fault their parents could not get along. All they know is that their life suddenly became much more painful, hard, and confusing than it was before.

Acceptance comes after children learn they can survive changes in their relationships, with moves, and with transitions. It takes time and lots of reassurance.

 

A therapist can help you understand if your child could benefit from counseling. Therapy for grief often focuses on emotional expression and validation, through play therapy techniques aimed at helping the child communicate. When a counselor engages in therapy for bereavement following or during a divorce, the child acquires a safe, supportive environment apart from the conflict the family is experiencing. The compassionate staff at Meridian Behavioral Health can help you start the process of healing. Call our office or leave us an email, and a qualified therapist will get back to you as soon as possible. You can also fill out our contact form by clicking here, and find out how we can help.

 


 Posted by GwenAmes at 5:28 pm

ANGER: What Is Normal, and Steps to Take When It Is Hurting You

 Clinical Topics  Comments Off
Apr 032011
 

Anger can isolate an individual from friends, family, and the community. It can harm others and result in legal problems. What researchers know is that there are many reasons an individual’s anger gets out of control. Some of the most common are:

  1. The effects of drugs or alcohol
  2. Angry behavior learned from family, friends, and the media
  3. A biological inclination to getting angry faster than others
  4. Poor communication skills
  5. Poor conflict resolution skills
  6. Negative attribution of the behavior of others
  7. Mental illness of any kind, including ADHD

A number of strategies will help tackle these problems, but you will have to challenge the way you think, and change your negative behaviors. You may also have to learn relaxation techniques, new communication skills, coping strategies, and how to motivate yourself to keep on trying when life feels hard to deal with.

Drugs and alcohol problems can make all the other reasons for anger worse. Sometimes this problem needs professional intervention, but the solution is to stop, stop, stop, and let your body learn to handle life in a normal way.

Just as angry patterns of behavior can be learned, they can be unlearned too. NO, it may not be easy, but it IS possible, and people do it every day.

What does a biological inclination mean? Simply, some people are born with more patience than others while others appear high strung and get angry more quickly and intensely. Suffering Succotash, what do you do? It will be important to develop coping strategies and relaxation skills to help you deal with situations when you get angry, and to help bring your tolerance for anger closer to a normal level.

Poor communication skills means you find it hard to express your feelings appropriately, and to talk to people in a way that makes them feel good about you and them. Learn to avoid using the ‘YOU’ word, extremes such as ‘always’ or ‘never’, labeling a person, words that are sarcastic, and other words likely to inflame.

Poor conflict resolution skills often means one person wins at any cost and one person loses. Learn to give sometimes, and cushion criticisms with positives. Keep the conflict focused on the problem at hand, and don’t bring up irrelevant wounds or unsettled business from the past. Negotiate and compromise, and learn to say that word ’Sorry’.

Some people assume the worst about others most of the time. They might interpret an apology as ‘They just want to pretend everything is all right now’, or might interpret an accidental oversight as ‘They forgot that on purpose’, or after a compliment might say, ’He just said that to be nice’. People can be cruel, and life can be unfair, but people who think this way the majority of the time, will feel unhappy and angry most of the time. Life is short, learn to be realistic. Truth is often in between the ‘all good’, and ‘all bad’ extremes.

Mental illness is not just a word. Statistics show that 26.5% of adults in the United States have a diagnosable mental illness in a given year. Mental illness can simply mean depression, anxiety, or attention deficit disorder, but other serious mental illness affect individuals as well. If your anger is out of control, consider being assessed by a competent psychologist, social worker, or counselor. Be open to the possibility of taking medication if it will help. People with the same problem often need different treatment strategies.

A therapist can help you define specific goals for your unique situation. Staff, at Meridian Behavioral Health, are compassionate and willing to help you start making the meaningful changes most important to you. Call our office or leave us an email, and a qualified therapist will get back to you as soon as possible.


Gwen Ames, LCSW     03/29/2011

 Posted by GwenAmes at 1:33 pm

Why Would a Therapist Want to Play With My Child?

 Clinical Topics  Comments Off
Jan 102011
 

Children’s behavior can be puzzling for parents as well as therapists. In the world of therapy, assessment and intervention looks very different for children than for adults where talk therapy is the predominant mode of treatment. For children, therapists commonly use play which may include toys, puppets, games, or art in the therapeutic process with children. There are six major reasons for this.

  1. Children have a harder time identifying the abstract emotional states often the focus in therapy. States such as ‘feeling helpless’, ‘being anxious’, ‘feeling overwhelmed’, ‘feeling hopeless’, ‘feeling out of control’, or ‘feeling depressed’ can be hard for children to conceptualize and talk through. Additionally, children often confuse feelings and thus may say they ‘hate’ someone when they are really ‘angry’ with them.
  2. People learn from life experiences what to expect from others, and help us understand what is normal or right. Simply put, children do not have breadth of life experiences they may need to sort through a problem. Children from abusive home for instance, may think everyone’s parents are abusive, and not consider the constant fighting in the home as the possible root of their anxiety or sadness.
  3. Children cannot always tolerate the internal conflict caused by talking about an issue directly. For instance, they may be able to play out that a monster hurt them, but not be able to talk directly about being abused or molested. They may be able to draw a picture of how much they miss their deceased grandmother, but not be able to sit with their sadness long enough to discuss the topic in the office.
  4. Children are more likely to act out their internal conflicts in peculiar ways.   A child may start fights with their siblings because they are feeling helpless at school from being bullied.
  5. Children lack the impulse control that comes from physical brain development which continues until the age of twenty-five. In short, they often act before they think.
  6. Last but not least, children learn best by doing, practicing, and while having fun.

As therapists, what we have learned about children is that they are very good at acting out their feelings and inner conflicts through play. Because of this, children don’t have to understand or even have a name for what they feel. They can show an experienced therapist what they are feeling, and show the influences interfering with their happiness. Play, therefore, can be thought of as a kind of universal language for children.

Just as children rehearse life by playing house, dressing up, helping dad fix the sink, or playing war, they are driven to play out inner conflicts in repetitive fashion until they are resolved. The class bully, for instance, has a token action figure on the living room floor until the bully stops being a threat at school. The bottom line is that children learn best by hearing, seeing, and doing as they do in play. The role of the therapist is then to help children:

  • learn new ways of understanding and coping,
  • build new skills to talk rather than act out,
  • develop better social skills, and
  • talk about, reinterpret, and heal from trauma.

So when you walk into a therapist office with your child, consider the limitations, needs, and learning styles of your child. Therapists use playful intervention in therapy because it just so happens to be the most effective tool known. In short, it works.

A therapist can help you define specific goals for your unique situation. Staff, at Meridian Behavioral Health, are compassionate and willing to help you start making the meaningful changes most important to you. Call our office or leave us an email, and a qualified therapist will get back to you as soon as possible.

Gwen Ames, LCSW     01/09/2011

 Posted by GwenAmes at 12:52 pm
© 2012 Meridian Behavioral Health, PC Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha