The Process Of Experiencing Loss

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

A person in his life constantly loses something - things, time, opportunities, relationships, people. Probably, there is not a single day when something is lost. Perhaps not a single hour or even a minute. Loss is the norm of a person's life and, accordingly, there must be some "normal" emotional reaction to the loss

Psychologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ros was one of the first to investigate such an emotional response to bereavement. She observed the reactions of terminally ill patients to their diagnosis and identified five stages of experience:

1. Denial. The person cannot believe his diagnosis

2. Aggression. Complaints to doctors, anger at healthy people

3. Trades. Bidding with fate, "Oh, if I …"

4. Depression. Despair, loss of interest in life

5. Acceptance. "I did not live in vain and now I can die …"

Later, this model was transferred to the experience of any loss, including the smallest. Going through these five (six) stages is considered the “norm” for experiencing loss. The speed of their passage depends on the severity of the loss and on the level of "maturity" of the individual. The lighter the losses, the faster they are experienced. The "norm" for the most severe losses (for example, the loss of a loved one) is a period of no more than a year or two. On the contrary, failure to pass these stages, hanging on any of them can be considered a deviation from the norm.

Some psychologists also supplemented this model with the sixth stage - "Development". In this case, in case of loss, a person goes through certain stages, as a result of which his personality receives the potential for development, becomes more mature. Or, these stages may not be passed (there was a hangup at a certain stage), and personality development, on the contrary, slowed down. Therefore, with this addition, any loss can be viewed from the positive side - it is a development potential. Without losing anything, a person cannot develop (similar to the thesis of Soviet psychology “personality develops in conflict”).

In the direction of Transactional Analysis psychotherapy, it is customary to depict this model through the “loop of loss”, where the movement of a person through the passage of the “loop of loss” upwards is clearly shown. Then, a person who has a broken cycle of experiencing loss, in this case, is not just incapable of experiencing them and suffers because of this, but his personality development is blocked as such. Then, the private task of the psychologist will be to help in the experience of loss, and the general task will be to restore the cycle of passing through the losses as such (therefore, often with a focal consultative request for help, grief experiences come up with a psychotherapeutic request for removing blocks and prohibitions in the emotional sphere).

The same model can be represented as a sequence of emotions that are experienced at each stage: 1. fear; 2. anger; 3. wine; 4. sadness; 5. acceptance; 6. hope. It is more convenient to explain the psychological function of each stage in this way. Normally, a person experiences a sequence of these emotions at any loss.

1. Stage of Fear. Fear is a protective emotion. It helps to anticipate and assess threats, prepare to face them (or escape from them). People whose experience of fear is underdeveloped or generally blocked are unable to adequately assess threats and prepare for them. It is quite logical that nature set the stage of fear first in the cycle of experiencing loss - after all, it is here that the threat to future life from this loss is assessed and the resources to survive it are sought. Accordingly, the greatest difficulties with experiencing this stage arise in people with impaired ability to experience fear. In this case, the person reacts to the loss with one level or another of its denial (from a neurotic feeling that nothing really happened to a psychotic complete non-recognition of the loss that has occurred). Also, instead of the forbidden true emotion of fear at this stage, scenario (racket, blackmail - the terminology of transactional analysis) emotions may arise. The task of the psychologist, when "stuck" at this stage, is to help in experiencing the fear of loss.

In a consultative way, this is a search and filling with resources that will help to live without an object of loss (it is highly discouraged to "break denial", as, for example, inexperienced specialists "like" to do in the case of addictions - the addict therefore denies his problem of addiction, because that he has no resources to live without her). In a psychotherapeutic sense (at all other stages it is similar, so I will omit its description for other stages) - work with blackmail emotions, access to children's fear prohibitions and insufficiently resourceful parental figures (the child did not receive empathy and protection in response to his fear emotions). As a self-help, you can write an essay "How can I live without … (object of loss)!"

2. Stage of Anger. Anger is an emotion aimed at changing the world (situation). From this point of view, following the stage of anger after the stage of fear is again perfectly logical. At the previous stage, there was a threat assessment and a search for resources. At this stage, an attempt is made to change the situation in their favor. Indeed, in many situations, before it's too late, the loss can be prevented by active actions (for example, catching up with a pickpocket when stealing a wallet), and it is anger that helps to take them. In addition, if fear helped to assess the level of threat to oneself, then anger helps to assess what is unacceptable in the very situation causing the loss. People with the forbidden emotion of anger may have problems getting through this stage. Instead of experiencing natural anger, such people can "hang" in aggression, claims and accusations, as well as in a sense of powerlessness and injustice. In addition, instead of experiencing true anger, blackmail emotions may appear. As in the stage of fear, the task of the psychologist in this case is to help in the experience of anger and the transition to the next stage of the experience of loss.

In a consultative way, this is the removal of cultural prohibitions on anger (for example, one cannot be angry that a person has died), the search for unacceptable moments in the situation and the search for resources to experience anger towards them. Self-help: "Letter of anger" (what I did not like in the situation, what makes me angry, what is unacceptable for me, etc. - it is important not to turn into accusations and aggression), "Letter of forgiveness."

3. Stage of Guilt. Guilt is an emotion that helps you look for mistakes in your behavior and correct them. At this stage, guilt helps a person to assess what could have been done differently and: 1.) either correct his behavior in time; 2.) or draw conclusions for the future for similar situations. A person with an inability to adequately experience guilt may "hang" at this stage in self-accusations, self-flagellation and other auto-aggressive emotions. The principle of the psychologist's work here is similar to the work at other stages. It is also important to teach a person to distinguish between the position of responsibility (“I am responsible for correcting / accepting my mistakes”), and guilt (“I should be punished for my mistakes”). Self-help: analysis of my mistakes, "Letter of anger to myself" (what I did not like in my behavior, it is important not to turn into auto-aggression), "Letter of self-forgiveness", a contract for new behavior in similar situations in the future.

4. Stage of Sadness. Sadness serves the function of breaking emotional ties with the object of attachment. With the problems of experiencing sadness, the person is unable to "let go" of the loss and "hangs" in "depressive" emotions. Features of the work of a psychologist at this stage: to show the "restoring" function of sad emotions. Self-help: analysis "+" of what you have lost (how good it was with this / him / her), "Letter of gratitude" (where you remember and express gratitude for all the good that was with the object of loss before, and without which you will now have to live) …

5. Stage of Acceptance. Acceptance fulfills the function of restoring and finding resources for life without the object of loss. At the end of this stage, an emotional point is put: “Yes, I can live without …!”. Features of the work of a psychologist: expanding the perspectives of time (transferring from the past and present to the future), searching for resources and replacing the object of loss. Self-help: "A letter of support to myself" (how I will live and support myself without an object of loss).

6. Hope. Hope is an emotion of development and striving forward. At this stage, the situation of loss is transformed into a situation of a resource. There is an understanding that this loss was in fact and gains that can be used in the future. The task of the psychologist: help in finding acquisitions in a situation of loss, how these resources can be used in the future. Self-help: analysis of gains in a situation of loss, "Letter of gratitude to the loss", setting goals for the future.

A few more words about the work of a psychologist with the experience of loss. Although this is a well-known and widespread topic in the work of psychologists, there are points that are rarely mentioned and many psychologists miss these points. In the case of a forbidden true emotion (as mentioned above), a person may experience a blackmail emotion instead. So, for example, if the blackmail emotion of true anger is guilt (the child was taught to feel guilty for his anger), then in the second stage, instead of anger, the feeling of guilt will be activated.

The psychologist in this case can make a mistake and take this stage for the third and help in the experience of guilt, which, in the end, will be ineffectual. While here work is needed not just to experience guilt, but to remove it, then unblock anger and help in experiencing it (anger). The principle is the same for other stages: understanding is important, a person does not have enough resources to experience true emotion at this stage, or we are dealing with blackmail emotions. True emotions need to be helped to experience (in the best traditions of gestalt therapy), while scenario emotions should be “removed” and revealed the true ones that lie behind them.

I would also like to remind you once again that there are not only large losses, but also small daily ones. And the person may be unable to experience them as well. As a result - a negative emotional background and blocked emotional development. In this case, the work of the psychologist will be to increase the emotional literacy and culture of a person (or, as it is fashionable to say today, emotional intelligence): explaining the functions of emotions, working out cultural prohibitions, working with the system of emotional racketeering and child prohibitions, etc.

And finally the slogan: appreciate the losses, only in them we gain!