The Therapist's Therapy

I don't want to write this. I feel like I don't have enough strength to convey these thoughts adequately. Nor the fortitude to face what may be some people's reactions or responses. But I've never read the words that I want to express. And I think they need to be written and spoken. I hope my words will be self-evident to all who read them. I pray they serve as they are intended - to help people with their healing needs. To help us all heal.

We are all in pain and shock from the terrible fire this past Shabbos. An entire family stricken with horrific, tragic loss. A client asked me today how the parents will survive their devastation and find a way to cope. He asked me, "Will they ever be able to smile again?" I didn't attempt to answer his question. All I could do was join him in trying to put some words to our feelings. And acknowledge that most of our feelings cannot be put into words.

Which brings me to my point. I have seen clients over the years who have experienced personal tragedy. Shocking, sudden loss. Loss that is nearly impossible to imagine for one who hasn't had similar personal experiences.

All meaningful loss can feel traumatic. Parents who have lost children. People who have come close to death and/or witnessed others' untimely deaths. Horrific accidents. Drug and alcohol overdose. Rape. Suicide. And all too often (really once is too often) these people have "frozen grief". Their loss had happened a significant time before, but there has yet to be a healthy, necessary grieving and mourning process.

As religious Jews, we believe everything in our life and in our world has meaning. Purposefulness. A Divine Plan is always occuring and unfolding. Hashem does everything for a reason.

And - Hashem created our humanity as it is and as it ought to be. This means many things. Including our need to grieve. Properly. Unreservedly. Without shame, judgment or distortion.

The reasons people wind up with personal psychopathology is always complex. There are many variables. Inherent genetic disposition. Early developmental exposure. Disordered attachment. Prolonged situational exposure. Personality. Personal resiliency. Internalized core beliefs. All this and more.

But what are the complicating religious factors? Deeply religious people can be vulnerable to "complex religiosity". We clinicians know how this can result as OCD, other forms of anxiety, depression, etc.

How can this manifest in the face of tragedy and loss? During these painful times, people need the warm, loving embrace of their community and loved ones. Unreserved acceptance of their thoughts and feelings. All of them. Including words and sentiments that uttered under different circumstances may be judged or deemed as problematic. Questions and anger, while difficult to hear and bear, are all necessary aspects to many people's grief process.

Back to those clients with frozen grief. In processing their loss and experiences, I have heard instances of how Rabbonim, Roshei Yeshiva, Rebbetzins, community leaders, even (frum) therapists offered their "Hashem/Hashkafa" perspectives. During shiva. During the year of aveilus. Local communities and schools unintentionally giving celebrity-like, role model status to those who have suffered personal loss or tragedy. At times when people needed the space and the permission to grieve, they instead grabbed with desperation onto anything that was being offered to them - anything that may alleviate their pain and suffering.

But sometimes well-intended sentiments offered by visitors and well-wishers can have the opposite effect. Conveying words of Chazal and Hashkafa that are ill-timed will be experienced as platitudes at best. And at worst, can negatively reinforce what may already be a complicated grief.

Trying to help people mourn for losses suffered long ago is very difficult.  After people experience loss there is an important opportunity.

What is being offered? And what do people in mourning truly need? How do we provide nechama? I believe the greater the experience of loss and/or shock the greater our understanding must be. To let them grieve. Each person in their own natural way. Each in their own time. Nobody should ever, ever offer a perspective or a spiritual/religious outlook to someone in grief UNLESS IT IS BEING ASKED FOR. And even then, it should be expressed with an empathic relatedness to the person's feelings than to the ideas being conveyed. 

People in mourning may grab onto their own beliefs and find that it provides them a sense of stability, meaning, and comfort. But ultimately, they must allow themselves the experience of their feelings - the full range of them. And we must not get in the way.

Religious beliefs, principles or sentiments can unintentionally serve as avoidance from pain, fear and anger. These are emotions that can be difficult for us to tolerate within ourselves, or in others we care about.

These ideas don't just apply to the people who have directly experienced loss. Many of us feel grief, shock; a sense of personal loss. Let us give ourselves and each other space for those feelings. This becomes the ground for spiritual/religious meaning that will ultimately help heal, not hurt.