When a person experiences a death within her family, community, or other circles of influence, a significant impact is made on her life. People emotionally and cognitively handle a death of a loved one in various ways. Loss and grief is a difficult journey for a person to walk through alone. Grief counseling is a method that helps people process and copes with their loss. There is much controversy in whether grief counseling is beneficial for the person experiencing great loss and grief. Some researchers believe it is beneficial, and other researchers believe a person can digress from her original state of grieving. The author, Elizabeth Altmaier reveals assessments on how to measure grief, and best practices in counseling an individual through the grieving process. …show more content…
This article highlights four commonly used assessments: Texas Revised Inventory of Grief, Grief Experience Inventory, Core Bereavement Items, and Hogan Grief Reaction. They all examine a person’s grief based on questioners, interviews, and other analyzation tools. It is important to remember that the assessments are only tools, and cannot completely measure the depth and intricacy of grief that a person experiences. The grief process must be looked at as a journey and not as a task. The relationship between the counselor and client is a very important aspect in grief counseling. The counselor should keep a compassionate model to enable the client to embrace the pain, reminisce about the deceased person, and develop a new self-identity. Maintaining this type of model can lead to healthy grief work. Showing empathy, being emotionally available, engaging fully with the client, allowing times for silence, being encouraging, and providing a safe and trusting environment are a few of the best practices in grief