Explore activities to help clients deal with grief and loss issues underlying their mental health or addictive issues. Listen to this presentation on Counselor Toolbox Podcast, available on any podcasting app. Get CEUs for the Journey to Recovery Series at https://www.allceus.com/member/cart/index/product/id/924/c/ Read the accompanying book for FREE with Kindle Unlimited https://allceus.com/JTR

1. Journey to Recovery Series
Grief and Loss Activities
Presented by: Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes
Executive Director, AllCEUs
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2. Objectives
 Define grief
 Conceptualize grief in terms of any loss
 Identify how failure to deal with grief can impact
a person
 Explore the stages of grief
 Review activities and interventions to help people
grieve
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3. Question
 What types of things have people lost that need
to be grieved?
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4. What is Grief
 Grief is a label assigned to all of the emotions
associated with dealing with any kind of loss
 Physical (Things, abilities, freedoms)
 Self-concept (Roles, values, labels)
 Worldview (Innocence, safety)
 Dreams (How things should be)
 Social (Loss of relationships…)
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5. What is Grief
 Primary losses also produce secondary losses
which also need to be acknowledged and grieved.
 Loss of a part of ourselves
 Loss of identity
 Loss of self confidence
 Loss of a chosen lifestyle
 Loss of security or a sense of safety
 Loss of dreams
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6. What is Grief
 What secondary losses might occur for these events?
 Death of a parent
 Separation or divorce
 Miscarriages
 Disability
 Chronic pain (fibro, rheumatoid arthritis)
 Diabetes/Chron’s
 Loss of a job
 Moving to a new place
 A child leaving home
 House fire/tornado
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Loss of a part of
ourselves
Loss of identity
Loss of self confidence
Loss of a chosen lifestyle
Loss of security or a
sense of safety
Loss of dreams

7. Types of Grief
 Anticipatory Grief: Experiencing anticipatory grief may provide time
for the preparation of loss, acceptance of loss, the ability to finish
unfinished business, life review and resolve conflicts
 Normal Grief: Normal feelings, reactions and behaviors to a loss; grief
reactions can be physical, psychological, cognitive, behavioral
 Complicated Grief:
 Chronic Grief: Normal grief reactions that do not subside and continue over
very long periods of time
 Delayed Grief: Normal grief reactions that are suppressed or postponed. The
survivor consciously of unconsciously avoids the pain of the loss.
 Masked Grief: Survivor is not aware that behaviors that interfere with normal
functioning are a result of the loss.
 Disenfranchised Grief: The grief encountered when a loss is experienced and
cannot be openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned or publicly shared.
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8. Stages of Grief
 Denial: Numbness, dream, alternate explanations)
 Anger: The unknown, loss of control, death,
isolation, failure—(shouldas and couldas)
 Bargaining: If I … then I will wake up and realize
this was only a really bad dream
 Depression: Helpless, hopeless
 Acceptance: Radical acceptance that the loss
occurred and determining how to proceed from
there
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9. Exacerbating & Mitigating factors
 How people react in a crisis depends upon 6
factors
 How close the situation was to them (physical and
emotional proximity)
 How many other stressors them experienced in the last
year
 Mental health issues/Effective coping skills
 Social supports
 Understanding of the loss (meaning and cognitively)
 How much control/responsibility they feel like they
had in the situation
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10. Impact of Unresolved Grief
 Most people get stuck in either anger or
depression
 Anger (shoulda, couldas and if onlys)
 At self
 At others
 At higher power
 Depression (Hopelessness, Helplessness—I don’t
now how to go on)
 At self
 At others
 At higher power
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11. Denial
 Denial, numbing is the mind’s way of protecting
people from what lies ahead.
 Facing the loss
 Understand the events of their lives and reconcile the
losses they have experienced (clarification)
 What happened to me?
 Anger is the power play
 Break down the walls (Bricks or legos with the losses and
threats represented)
 Bargaining, Pining
 Mindfulness
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12. Depression
 Depression, Disorganization and Despair
 Address hopelessness and helplessness by focusing on
what can be changed
Death Disappearance
Loss Nothing will ever be okay again
Failure Failure at everything
Bad thing happens It has to happen again
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13. Acceptance
 Acceptance/Reorganization
 Redefine worldview integrating new experiences and
strengths
 Visualize a positive future
Who am I? (identity)
Where am I going? (attachment)
How will I get there? (relationships)
When will I know I belong? (claiming and safety)
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14. Not a Linear Process
 Most people experience grief surrounding a loss
for at least a year. (Timeline)
 Holidays
 Anniversaries
 Reminders (people, places, things, media)
 Many people will vacillate between depression
and anger. (Mindfulness, Emergency plan)
 Normalize people’s experiences
 Encourage them to reach out to supports
 Address happiness and survivor guilt
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15. Self Care for Grief
 Emotionally
 Express feelings
 Ask for and accept help
 Don’t let anyone tell you how to feel—and don’t tell yourself
how you “should” feel
 Be patient
 Be kind to yourself
 Add happiness triggers
 Be aware of your grief triggers
 Embrace the dialectic
 It is gone but I have the memories/what I learned
 I cannot change it but I can impact how it continues to impact
me
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16. Self Care for Grief
 Physically
 Get plenty of quality rest
How to handle being alone with your thoughts….
 Exercise
 Eat a healthy diet
 Avoid alcohol
 Pay attention to persistent changes in eating, sleeping,
mood or energy levels
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17. Self Care for Grief
 Psychologically
 Write things down
 Simplify
 Set short term goals
 Distract/engage in pleasurable activities
 Start writing the next chapter in your story
 Plan ahead for grief triggers
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18. Self-Care for Grief
 Interpersonally
 Rebuild relationships (even understand they can be
members of more than one family)
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19. Bill of Rights for Grief
 To know the truth about the loss
 To have questions answered honestly
 To need people and be heard with dignity and respect
 To be silent and not talk about grief emotions and thoughts.
 To talk about the loss as much as needed
 To not agree with your perceptions and conclusions
 To see the person who died and the place of the death.
 To grieve any way she/he wants without hurting self or others.
 To feel all the feelings and to think all the thoughts of his/her own unique grief.
 To not have to follow the “stages of grief” as outlined in a book.
 To grieve in one’s own unique, individual way without censorship.
 To be angry at death, at the person who died, at god, at self, and at others.
 To have “griefbursts”
 To be involved in the decisions about the rituals related to the loss
 To not be taken advantage of
 To have guilt about what he/she could have done or shouldn’t have done
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20. Activities
 Create safety
 Invisible string (Windchime (heart, shells, keys, pipes,
terra cotta pots )
 Book of memories
 Heart-Break Pot (break into large pieces)
 Using paint pens and markers, have each family member or
child write on the inside of the broken pieces.
 Instruct them to identify their feelings about being alone in
their grief.
 On the outside of the pieces write about or draw their
sources of support.
 Glue back together
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21. Activities
 Goodbye letter
 Letter to God
 Memory garden
 Jar of memories / regrets
 Memory mural
 Timeline of Change
 2 Box Organization – Keep it or Trash it
 Create a family flag
 Alphabet of gratitude
 Raise and release butterflies
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22. Activities
 Jenga (write discussion prompts on cards)
 What is your favorite memory
 What is the hardest part of the loss
 What is something you learned
 What is something you did to make yourself laugh this week
 Who is your support
 What are 2 things that help you most right now
 The hardest time of day is…
 When I am alone, I can…
 Some things I enjoy
 Changes in my family because of the loss
 I am feeling…
 3 ways to release feelings of sadness
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23. Summary
 Losses encompass more than death or a person or
loss of property
 Failure to acknowledge losses can cause unhelpful
reactions in similar future situations
 It is important to explore feelings and reactions in
terms of their functionality---how are they
benefitting the person
 It takes at least a year to deal with significant
losses
 Many times there are multiple ancillary losses
that need to be addressed
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24. Summary
 How people deal with grief and loss varies widely.
 Grieving is a form of crisis
 The body is on high alert which likely impacts
sleep, eating and energy to work or socialize
 Minimizing vulnerabilities is important to reduce
unnecessary frustration and avoid confirming
helplessness
 Ultimately it is hoped that the person can identify
how they are stronger or better off from the
experience
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