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  • Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners

    Are support groups effective in dealing with the grieving process?

    Related Topics
    Bereavement Mental Health
    • 2 answers
    • Compassionate Friends Victoria
    • Ralph Graham
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    Agree

    Compassionate Friends Victoria

    The Compassionate Friends is a peer support organisation offering friendship and understanding to bereaved parents and siblings following the death of a son or daughter, … View Profile

    The short answer is “for some people definitely” and “for most people probably, if they can find the personal resources to make that first contact”!

    Our experience in running bereavement support groups for The Compassionate Friends, Lifeline and other groups, over 20+ years, indicates that almost all who find the courage to attend that first meeting gain very considerably from their interactions with those who have experienced similar losses.

    A very small few find the experience of hearing other peoples’ stories too overwhelming and do not return to the group. However, we have found that many of these do return (months or years) later, or (commonly) these people will make a one-to-one contact with someone from the support group and gain support that way. Or they will seek out a professional.

    Again we emphasise that our experience in working with the bereaved over three decades, is that most people find good basic support from their family and friends following a serious loss. However, our experience has also indicated that the movement towards a comfortable integration of the loss into a “new” self and life can occur faster and be more rounded if carefully chosen (competent, knowledgeable and caring) extra support is sought out, to either supplement the support from family and friends, or compensate for the perceived or real lack of this support.

    And good peer or mutual help support groups is one very powerful avenue – with one very important proviso. That the leadership of such a support group is caring, competent and knowledgeable (that is, that the support group is run by someone who understands the grief process and the dynamics of group management).

    This emphasis on a need for caring and well trained leadership of support groups is absolutely vital, and needs to be carefully checked out, because those who attend such groups are so vulnerable, although this ‘sussing out’ of knowledge and competency applies to ALL avenues of help, including when choosing professionals such as psychologists, social workers, and counsellors generally.

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  • Ralph Graham

    Counsellor

    Ralph Graham, Counsellor, Psychotherapist, helping those who are affected by:grief, loss, anxiety, phobias, panic attack.And those who have been traumatised by:crime, assault, sexual abuse and … View Profile

    I was thinking that the above answer is so good. I think I can add that group interaction can work alongside one on one meetings with a practitioner as well. One of the benefits is the privacy and the opportunity for the  practitioner to use methods and approaches that are more tuned to the individual and allow them to discover things within, without having to consider that their are other people there.

    I tend to think that group meetings/therapy offer valuable support to one on one work where deeper healing often happens.

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