Often people experience what professionals call "hauntings" but are nervous to acknowledge these or bring them up in discussion. Here are some thoughts on "hauntings" borrowed from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' writings.
• There are many types of hauntings, such as sounds you hear, people you see (visual haunting), words that echo, and even the physical sensation of being touched.
• You may be tormented by a scene you wish you hadn’t witnessed, like a loved one with tubes, the smell of the hospital room, or the pained expression on your loved one’s face.
• You can talk about the visions or draw pictures of them. Art therapy can help people give physical form to their visions as these move from mind to canvas. Whatever your vision may be, find a way to get it out. Try to externalize it. Talk about it. Write a letter.
• For some, the haunting is a feeling in the room, a presence that seems like a loved one hovering, a beloved soul lingering.
• Many such feelings and sensations are beyond explanation. We simply need to acknowledge that the feelings are real, and if the presence feels unsettling, there is some unfinished business at hand.
• Hauntings after the death of a loved one are normal and common. They often bring important
messages from the psyche that arise from our inner world of grief. They may also bring fear.
• Hauntings contain valuable clues, threads to be followed to their source.
• “he was just here and he told me how much he misses me. Oh yeah, he told me to tell you he’s okay and the cancer is gone.”
• Whether or not they are physical realities is irrelevant to the grief process. To spend time questioning the experience is to miss the point…and perhaps the gift.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Grief related Dreaming
Dreams
• It is not unusual to dream that your loved one is still alive.
• Many people say that regardless of the outcome of the dream, they are grateful for even a few more moments with a loved one.
• Dreams can provide information about what is really going on inside us.
• Our dreams can demonstrate the inevitable lack of control we feel when we are grieving.
• Dreams may serve many purposes, including a distraction from pain or a demonstration of the soul grappling with reality.
• Dreams help us deal with incomprehensible feelings while we sleep. The unconscious mind cannot distinguish between a wish and reality.
• Before a loss, people agree that most dreams are hard to understand because their messages are not clear. After a loss, messages are usually much more to the point and contain signs of reassurances, continued existence, and emotional support.
• In some cases, dream visitations bring frustration when we can’t control them. Some want to dream and cannot.
• When people dream of a loved one, they often report feeling a sense of peace afterward, a reassurance beyond words.
• Eventually, the dreams will begin to subside and become less frequent.
• The dream vision of a loved one can also represent unfinished business, the chance to complete something that was suddenly severed.
• It is not unusual to dream that your loved one is still alive.
• Many people say that regardless of the outcome of the dream, they are grateful for even a few more moments with a loved one.
• Dreams can provide information about what is really going on inside us.
• Our dreams can demonstrate the inevitable lack of control we feel when we are grieving.
• Dreams may serve many purposes, including a distraction from pain or a demonstration of the soul grappling with reality.
• Dreams help us deal with incomprehensible feelings while we sleep. The unconscious mind cannot distinguish between a wish and reality.
• Before a loss, people agree that most dreams are hard to understand because their messages are not clear. After a loss, messages are usually much more to the point and contain signs of reassurances, continued existence, and emotional support.
• In some cases, dream visitations bring frustration when we can’t control them. Some want to dream and cannot.
• When people dream of a loved one, they often report feeling a sense of peace afterward, a reassurance beyond words.
• Eventually, the dreams will begin to subside and become less frequent.
• The dream vision of a loved one can also represent unfinished business, the chance to complete something that was suddenly severed.
Grief messes with our belief system
Life Beliefs & Grief
• Grief is the shattering of many conscious and unconscious beliefs about what our lives are supposed to look like.
• “Life was never supposed to be perfect but was always supposed to be long.” We learn as children that old people die because “their body gets old and worn out”.
• No one expects us to say these things to a child, but as children grow, we need to update their views on life and death. If we don’t we perpetuate the beliefs and assumptions that nothing ever goes wrong.
• When there is an exception to our belief system, we want to assign a reason that makes us feel safer.
• Even the belief that child is not supposed to get sick and dies, that a child’s death is unnatural, is not a reality.
• Today, we believe that modern medicine can cure anything that ails us, and we relax into that belief.
• The belief that healthy living will stop us from dying is a hard belief system to hold together when we are deep in grief.
• Take the time to live with the question of “why me?” For some the answer is “Why not me? Why should I be excluded from life’s losses?”
• Your belief system needs to heal and regroup as much as your soul does. You may start to rebuild a system that has room for the realities of life and still offers safety and hope for a different life.
• Grief is the shattering of many conscious and unconscious beliefs about what our lives are supposed to look like.
• “Life was never supposed to be perfect but was always supposed to be long.” We learn as children that old people die because “their body gets old and worn out”.
• No one expects us to say these things to a child, but as children grow, we need to update their views on life and death. If we don’t we perpetuate the beliefs and assumptions that nothing ever goes wrong.
• When there is an exception to our belief system, we want to assign a reason that makes us feel safer.
• Even the belief that child is not supposed to get sick and dies, that a child’s death is unnatural, is not a reality.
• Today, we believe that modern medicine can cure anything that ails us, and we relax into that belief.
• The belief that healthy living will stop us from dying is a hard belief system to hold together when we are deep in grief.
• Take the time to live with the question of “why me?” For some the answer is “Why not me? Why should I be excluded from life’s losses?”
• Your belief system needs to heal and regroup as much as your soul does. You may start to rebuild a system that has room for the realities of life and still offers safety and hope for a different life.
"The Story" of grief...
Grief- The Story
Most people have experienced a death. It can be a time where people come together. It also can be a time where people realize that living is an individual experience. Sometimes, grief can be isolating and lonely, at times. People "story" grief without knowing they are doing this. The following are some points about the story.
• We find ourselves sitting by ourselves remembering the story of the loss. We may find ourselves retelling the story to friend and family.
• As time passes, you may see others grow weary of hearing the story, although you are not yet tired of telling it.
• Telling the story is part of the healing of a traumatic event.
• Your mind lags behind, trying to integrate something new into your psyche.
• Grief must be witnessed to be healed. Grief shared is grief abated.
• There is something about taking the inner thoughts of your mind and speaking them out loud that helps put things in order.
• You will find the story changing over time; not necessarily what happened, but what part you focus on.
• If you don’t tell the story over and over, you will have missed crucial insight.
• The stories we tell give meaning to the fact that our loved one died, which is why, in American Indian cultures, stories are given the highest priority. In fact, the function of the elderly is to tell the stories of the lives and deaths of the ancestors, the stories that keep their history alive.
• The ways we now have in our society to share our loss become fewer as we discount grief and loss. Not telling the story and holding it back also takes an enormous amount of energy.
• Not telling the story can be very unnatural.
• Our stories contain lessons, often of kindness and honesty.
• Sometimes a loss is so great, you need a larger platform. Sometimes people create videos, write stories and books.
• When someone is telling you their story over and over, they are trying to figure something out. There has to be a missing piece or they too would be bored. Ask questions about parts that don’t connect.
Most people have experienced a death. It can be a time where people come together. It also can be a time where people realize that living is an individual experience. Sometimes, grief can be isolating and lonely, at times. People "story" grief without knowing they are doing this. The following are some points about the story.
• We find ourselves sitting by ourselves remembering the story of the loss. We may find ourselves retelling the story to friend and family.
• As time passes, you may see others grow weary of hearing the story, although you are not yet tired of telling it.
• Telling the story is part of the healing of a traumatic event.
• Your mind lags behind, trying to integrate something new into your psyche.
• Grief must be witnessed to be healed. Grief shared is grief abated.
• There is something about taking the inner thoughts of your mind and speaking them out loud that helps put things in order.
• You will find the story changing over time; not necessarily what happened, but what part you focus on.
• If you don’t tell the story over and over, you will have missed crucial insight.
• The stories we tell give meaning to the fact that our loved one died, which is why, in American Indian cultures, stories are given the highest priority. In fact, the function of the elderly is to tell the stories of the lives and deaths of the ancestors, the stories that keep their history alive.
• The ways we now have in our society to share our loss become fewer as we discount grief and loss. Not telling the story and holding it back also takes an enormous amount of energy.
• Not telling the story can be very unnatural.
• Our stories contain lessons, often of kindness and honesty.
• Sometimes a loss is so great, you need a larger platform. Sometimes people create videos, write stories and books.
• When someone is telling you their story over and over, they are trying to figure something out. There has to be a missing piece or they too would be bored. Ask questions about parts that don’t connect.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Brief comment on Attachment....
For my friends and followers living with foster or adopted children...
I've been away on a few camping trips .... on which I can not bring my adopted daughter as a result of inappropriate behaviour (if you are living this, you know what i'm talking about)....and despite the fact that she has other struggles (mental health and other).....she continues to present as a dysfunctional attached child. Specifically, she cries desperately when i'm gone that she misses me, but can't communicate with me at all in any appropriate manner when i'm home. This is a significant indicator of one type of dysorganized attachment. After 2.5 years, I thought we'd be further. Just when I think we are making slight headway, here are the symptomology right in front of me.
If you are in this position, consider reading anything by Dan Hughes. Further swing through some old posts on this blog for attachment links etc.
I've been away on a few camping trips .... on which I can not bring my adopted daughter as a result of inappropriate behaviour (if you are living this, you know what i'm talking about)....and despite the fact that she has other struggles (mental health and other).....she continues to present as a dysfunctional attached child. Specifically, she cries desperately when i'm gone that she misses me, but can't communicate with me at all in any appropriate manner when i'm home. This is a significant indicator of one type of dysorganized attachment. After 2.5 years, I thought we'd be further. Just when I think we are making slight headway, here are the symptomology right in front of me.
If you are in this position, consider reading anything by Dan Hughes. Further swing through some old posts on this blog for attachment links etc.
Criteria for Bipolar (as set out in the DSM-IV)
Criteria for Manic Episode, as outlined in the criteria manual the DSM, IV:
A. A distinct period of abnormally and persistenntly elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting at least 1 week (or any duration if hospitalization is necessary).
B. During the period of mood disturbance, three (or more) of the following symptoms have poersisted (four if the mood is only irritable) and have been present to a significant degree:
(1) inflated self-esteem or grandiosity
(2) decreased need for sleep
(3) more talkative than usual or pressure to keep talking
(4) flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are raciing
(5) distractibility (i.e. attention too easily drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli)
(6) increase in goal-directed activity or psychomotor agitation
(7) excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g. engaging in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish busiiness investments).
C. The symptoms do not meet criteria for a Mixed Episode.
D. The mood disturbance is sufficiently severe to cause marked impairment in occupational functioning or in usual social activities or relationships with others.....
E. The symptoms are not due to the direct physicological effects of a substance or a general medical condition.
MIXED EPISODE
"A mixed Episode is characterized by a period of time (lasting at least 1 week) in which the criteria are met both for a Manic Episode and for a Major Depressive Episode nearly every day. The individual experiences rapidly alternating moods (sadness, irritability, euphoria) accompanied by symptoms of a Manic Episode and a Major Depressive Episode.
AS WITH ALL MENTAL HEALTH CONCERNS, THE READER SHOULD CONSULT WITH THEIR PHYSICIAN OR A REGISTERED PSYCHOLOGIST IN ORDER TO ATTAIN ACCURATE ASSESSMENT. THIS BLOG IS INFORMATIONAL ONLY. THIS IS MY DISCLAIMER.
A. A distinct period of abnormally and persistenntly elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting at least 1 week (or any duration if hospitalization is necessary).
B. During the period of mood disturbance, three (or more) of the following symptoms have poersisted (four if the mood is only irritable) and have been present to a significant degree:
(1) inflated self-esteem or grandiosity
(2) decreased need for sleep
(3) more talkative than usual or pressure to keep talking
(4) flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are raciing
(5) distractibility (i.e. attention too easily drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli)
(6) increase in goal-directed activity or psychomotor agitation
(7) excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g. engaging in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish busiiness investments).
C. The symptoms do not meet criteria for a Mixed Episode.
D. The mood disturbance is sufficiently severe to cause marked impairment in occupational functioning or in usual social activities or relationships with others.....
E. The symptoms are not due to the direct physicological effects of a substance or a general medical condition.
MIXED EPISODE
"A mixed Episode is characterized by a period of time (lasting at least 1 week) in which the criteria are met both for a Manic Episode and for a Major Depressive Episode nearly every day. The individual experiences rapidly alternating moods (sadness, irritability, euphoria) accompanied by symptoms of a Manic Episode and a Major Depressive Episode.
AS WITH ALL MENTAL HEALTH CONCERNS, THE READER SHOULD CONSULT WITH THEIR PHYSICIAN OR A REGISTERED PSYCHOLOGIST IN ORDER TO ATTAIN ACCURATE ASSESSMENT. THIS BLOG IS INFORMATIONAL ONLY. THIS IS MY DISCLAIMER.
Social Work's Assessment of Mood/Bipolar Disorder
Mood disorders are divided into Depressive Disorders and Bipolar Disorders. The defining feature of Bipolar Disorder is the experience of one or more manic or hypomanic episodes. According to the DSM IV (1994) - diagnostic manual - the central feature of mmood disorders is disturbance of mood - manic or depressive. The range of the mood disorders include the following: Major Depression, Dysthymia, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Mania, Hypomania, Bipolar (1 + 2), and Cyclothymia.
As several people are most knowledgable about Depression, I will start with outlining Manic experiences. However please note the following. Often general depression co-occurs with other illnesses such as: medical illness (myocardial infarction, cancer, post-stroke patients). Other concurrent illnesses include: panic disorder, eating disorders, and substance abuse disorders. Issues such as substance abuse must be discontinued so that a clear diagnosis can be made and the appropriate treatment tiven.
When assessing to treat mania, the following factors may be considered.
1. Destructive acting out behaviour
2. Extreme hyperactivity
3. extreme agitation
4. Self-injurious behaviour
5. Loud, and escalating aggressiveness
6. Threatening behaviour
7. suspiciousness or paranoid ideation
8. hostility, threatening harm to self or others
9. Rageful
10. Aggressive body language or aggressive acts
11. Provoking behariour (challenging)
12. hallucinations or delusions
13. possesses the means to harm
14. bragging about prior incidence of abuse to self/others
15. Altered throught processes
16. Impaired social interaction
17. low self-esteem
18. sleep disturbances
Some of the following information has been borrowed from Sharon Johnson's "Therapist's Guide to Clinical Intervention: The 1-2-3's of Treatment Planning".
As several people are most knowledgable about Depression, I will start with outlining Manic experiences. However please note the following. Often general depression co-occurs with other illnesses such as: medical illness (myocardial infarction, cancer, post-stroke patients). Other concurrent illnesses include: panic disorder, eating disorders, and substance abuse disorders. Issues such as substance abuse must be discontinued so that a clear diagnosis can be made and the appropriate treatment tiven.
When assessing to treat mania, the following factors may be considered.
1. Destructive acting out behaviour
2. Extreme hyperactivity
3. extreme agitation
4. Self-injurious behaviour
5. Loud, and escalating aggressiveness
6. Threatening behaviour
7. suspiciousness or paranoid ideation
8. hostility, threatening harm to self or others
9. Rageful
10. Aggressive body language or aggressive acts
11. Provoking behariour (challenging)
12. hallucinations or delusions
13. possesses the means to harm
14. bragging about prior incidence of abuse to self/others
15. Altered throught processes
16. Impaired social interaction
17. low self-esteem
18. sleep disturbances
Some of the following information has been borrowed from Sharon Johnson's "Therapist's Guide to Clinical Intervention: The 1-2-3's of Treatment Planning".
Bipolar Disorder (repost)
Several folks of late have asked me questions about the diagnostic criteria and ins and outs of Bipolar Disorder. As an up to date blogging start, I am reposting this post from 2007 with a youtube link that contains a slight introduction to Bipolar Disorder.
2007
I recently viewed this video with a teen whose parent and sibling struggle with Bipolar Disorder. She found it helpful. It is one of a six part series that can be found at www.youtube.com with a title "Bipolar Disorder: It is a brain thing". Perhaps others will be interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfiYvSFhvM4
2007
I recently viewed this video with a teen whose parent and sibling struggle with Bipolar Disorder. She found it helpful. It is one of a six part series that can be found at www.youtube.com with a title "Bipolar Disorder: It is a brain thing". Perhaps others will be interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfiYvSFhvM4
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