What Helps 4: Counselling

Professional counselling may not always be necessary in the grieving process. In some cases, it might be necessary where, for example, a current grief situation brings up issues or traumatic feelings from the past. In either case, the skills and focussed attention of a counsellor or a therapist will almost certainly help to ease the journey. A few weeks after Maeve died, I was scheduled to facilitate a group therapy residential weekend in the imagery process that is the main type of counselling I offer. It was clear that I would need more attention and care than probably anyone else who might attend the workshop. Instead of cancelling the workshop, I asked a friend and colleague, Monica Sharwood, to facilitate the weekend. We reorganised it so that it now became a weekend geared towards supporting Robyn, Tara and myself. About twenty of us gathered at Camp Bornhoffen, high in the Numinbah Valley, inland from Quensland's Gold Coast. We shared stories of loved ones departed, we explored our inner worlds through imagery journeys, we ate good food, sang, went for walks and generally took time away from ordinary life to honour the huge transition in our lives that the death of Maeve entailed. We made space in our lives so that inner adjustments could take place. This contrasts to some extent with the approach that says one should get back into life as quickly as possible and get on with it. But that approach feels like a denial of inner changes that need space. In reality, grief was my life at that time. Spending a weekend honouring it was probably one of the best things I could have done at that time.
Everyone who attended left feeling greatly enriched by the experience.