Grief counselling : community intervention practices
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Date
2000
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Abstract
Loss through death is an inevitable part of life. Not only does it separate families from their loved ones; it also threatens community cohesion and solidarity. In most cultures, the painful road from loss to healing concerns not only the immediate family, but the community at large. In other words, grief is a shared experience. The disposal of the dead and the accompanying mourning rituals are a social, if not a public affair. Though it is never solicited, support subsequent to bereavement is expected from friends, relatives, and the community at large. This is well expressed in the Zulu poetic saying, "umuntu umuntu nga bantu/" (broadly translated as ''Only through you do I become"). Community psychology as a discipline cannot afford to give casual attention to alternative support services offered in communities, including, grief counselling. This study therefore explores community intervention practices in grief counselling. The research seeks to clarify the experiences of people who experience grief with the objective of understanding how they are supported. Grief counselling, as practised in communities in this study, has been found to be an informed process. It takes the bereaved step-by-step from the initial stage of informing them about the death, through the shock and denial and ushers them into the awareness of loss phase. Burial ceremonies accentuate the departure of the deceased from among the living, while they also offer solace, support and solidarity to the bereaved as they are confronted with the reality of death. Not much was found to be done in terms of post-burial support except for the purification rites and traditional inquests with healers and prophets. Of the ten participants that were interviewed, eight attributed the death of their loved ones to bewitchment. The wearing of mourning clothes marked the transitional period and facilitated for the withdrawal of the bereaved for purposes of their healing over time. This transitional period culminated into the re¬incorporation celebration. This progression has, as delineated above, been recommended to form guidelines for the development of a psycho-educational grief counselling programme in order to recycle resources.
Description
Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Community Psychology) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2000.
Keywords
Psychology, Clinical psychology, Grief counselling