ASSESSMENT
As a family my husband and I fulfilled all our duties according to our cultural expectations and traditions prior to returning back to Sydney; however the conflicting demands of raising a young family, lack of connectedness, and the perceived difference in the intensity of loss experienced added stress to our relationship. This stress was further compounded when my husband lost his job. As this life event ensued a couple of months after my father-in-law’s death, we decided not to share this news with our family back home placing restrictions on our support network. Cook and Oltjenburns (1989) refer to this concept of accumulated loss as bereavement overload; in which a griever is faced with the prospect of dealing with a primary
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Hooyman & Kramer (2006) conceptualise this type of grief which an individual experiences when they are impacted by a loss that is not openly acknowledged or socially supported as ‘disenfranchised grief’. Doka (1989) further described ‘disenfranchise grief’ as grief that is invisible but real (Bailey & Rycroft, 2004; Doka, 2002). It was during this period of grief that I started evaluating my relationships and questioning the relevance and meaning of my life story; and chose to embark on the journey of studying counselling. Gerald & Gerald (2012) would argue that my decision to study counselling was motivated by my intrinsic need to seek validity and view it as a mode of self-intervention I have employed to resolve the duress which arose from the grief …show more content…
In accordance with the grief models of dual process theory and Rando’s models, it presented a view point that my grief experience can be conceptualised as disenfranchised grief and furthermore discussed and analysed the various interventions I would employ as a counsellor to a client who presents with a similar grief experience.
This case study also presented that view point that although experiencing grief is a normal response to loss, the manifestations of grief and bereavement can assume various degrees of severity and that tailoring the counselling assessment and intervention according to client situation is pivotal in integrating the loss without compounding