Grief Part 3

The ‘growing around grief’ is a model created by grief counselor Lois Tonkin after listening to a client speak about the death of her child. The woman described how her grief consumed her. She thought that as time passed the grief would lessen and become only a small part of her. However, the grief stayed the same, but her life continued to grow around it.

There were times when she felt the grief as intensely as when her child first passed, and there was also times when she felt she lived her life in the space outside of her grief circle.

Grief does not just go away. You can’t just ‘get over it!’ The ‘growing around grief’ model shows how we can still grieve the loss of our loved one while carrying on with our own lives. The grief does not get smaller. We get bigger. It shows that we can grow a new life which includes the loss.

Bowlby (1980) adds to this and explains that grieving requires feelings of attachment to be allowed to continue, preserving our sense of identity and the ability to reorganize our lives.https://instagram.com/p/CY1JbvjMezE/