Depression is a common mental disorder that causes people to experience depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, low energy, and poor concentration. Depression is different from feeling down or sad. Unhappiness is something which everyone feels at one time or another, usually due to a particular cause. A person experiencing dep
ression will experience intense emotions of anxiety, hopelessness, negativity and helplessness, and the feelings stay with them instead of going away. Depression can happen to anyone. Many successful and famous people who seem to have everything going for them battle with this problem. Depression also affects people of every age. Half of the people who have depression will only experience it once but for the other half it will happen again. The length of time that it takes to recover ranges from around six months to a year or more. Living with depression is difficult for those who suffer from it and for their family, friends, and colleagues. It can be difficult to know if you are depressed and what you can do about it. Depression can happen suddenly as a result of physical illness, experiences dating back to childhood, unemployment, bereavement, family problems or other life-changing events. Examples of chronic illnesses linked to depression include heart disease, back pain and cancer. Pituitary damage, a treatable condition which frequently follows head injuries, may also lead to depression. Sometimes, there may be no clear reason for your depression but, whatever the original cause, identifying what may affect how you feel and the things that are likely to trigger depression is an important first step
BEREAVEMENT
A psychological understanding of grief
People need strong affectionate bonds with other people for their emotional well being, and they try hard to maintain these ties. Loss through death permanently breaks this bond. Grief can be seen as a person's struggle to maintain the emotional bond, while simultaneously experiencing the reality of loss.
'Grief work' is the process that a mourner needs to complete before resuming daily life. It involves separating from the deceased, adjusting to a world without them and sometimes forming new relationships. People grieve not only for the deceased, but also for the unfulfilled dreams and plans for the future that they hoped to share with them. Phases of grief
Grief usually passes through three stages, but these stages are not separate, nor do they necessarily follow in sequence. An initial stage of shock or disbelief when it is difficult to believe that the death has occurred. This stage may last minutes or weeks. A stage of acute anguish that usually lasts from weeks to months when feelings of depression occur. Planning the future may be difficult. BEREAVEMENT THERAPY
HOW CAN HYPNOTHERAPY HELP WITH THE PROCESS OF GRIEVING
Have you lost someone close to you ? Do you feel unable to move on ? Do you have constant feeling of loneliness, hurt, or sadness ? Do you have feelings of guilt, anger, anxiety ? Do you have feelings of regret for words left unspoken ? Grief is the normal feeling we experience in reaction to a loss and usually refers to the loss of a loved one, through death. Grief is quite common. Seventy five percent of women outlive their spouse. The average age of becoming a widow is in the middle to late fifties. The pain we and suffering is the price we have to pay for loving someone. Bereavement is the state of having experienced loss, it is something we all have to go through at sometime during our life. It can make us feel as though a large part of our life has been taken away. Losing someone or some thing important to us can change our life
The death of a loved one is a very difficult time it affects us all at some time. While we are going through the pains of grief, its very difficult to see if we will ever enjoy life again. In time, our grieving will start to ease to ease and our life will slowly begin to become more bearable. Losing a loved one can be very painful to deal with, a sound, asmell or even a song on the radio, can bring back memories. How can hypnotherapy help with the grieving process. No one can replace a loved one. Hypnotherapy can help you move away from your grief. Hypnotherapy for grief and bereavement is not about forgetting a loved one, it's about helping you to release the negative and sometimes very painful emotions that we associate with our memories. Hypnosis can help you feel free, to remember the memories you want, without all the negative emotions that can cause you pain. WHAT IS NORMAL GRIEF
The more typical feelings someone may encounter after a bereavement, can include:
Disturbed sleep
Loss of appetite
crying
weight loss
Anger
Sadness
Feelings of guilt
Preoccupation with the person lost. Hearing their voice and sometimes seeing the person. The initial symptoms and the disturbances will gradually become less as over time you now begin to accept the loss. The reaction we have to grief can vary and usually lasts around 6 months, but in some cases can in last years. WHAT IS ABNORMAL GRIEF
Abnormal grief usually occurs when grief has been very intense, prolonged or when the reaction to grief is delayed. This reaction is somehow different, the symptoms you experience are out of the normal range this can include:
Excessive feelings of guilt. A slowing down of thoughts and movement
Feeling worthless. A belief that these unwanted feeling will never go
A prolonged feeling of not being able to function. Hypnotherapy can help you to move forward through the bereavement, loss and grief, helping you to now remember the loved one without all the negative feelings of: grief, guilt, anger helping you to remember the happy good times. When it comes to learning to live with our loss and to moving on there are five stages of grief that we usually need to move through. It's healthy and good for us to pass through them all. Grief is individual to all of us. There is no such thing as a typical grieving process as it's different for us all. You may find you take one step forward then two steps back, this is all part of the grieving process. It will get easier. One of the hardest things to do is to be able to let go of someone we love, or to even allow yourself to let go. THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF
ANGER
Why me ? Feeling of anger towards the deceased person for leaving you, and wanting to fight back. Anger is a very important emotion and by feeling angry and then releasing the anger instead of holding it in, can help us to move on. DENIAL
Denial that this is happening to me. Acting as though your loved one is still living, looking for them in familiar places. There may be very little or even no crying unable to accept or even acknowledge the loss of the loved one. This can be normal reaction as it allows you to get through each day and you only need to handle what is necessary at that particular time. BARGAINING
Trying to make deals with god to change or even stop the loss, Praying for them to come back even begging and wishing for them to come back. We may find ourselves getting lost in this perpetual circle of "if only" or "what if". DEPRESSION
After the bargaining stages we come more towards the present. We can begin to experience feelings sometimes they can become overwhelming feeling of self pity, bitterness, frustration, hopelessness, mourning for the loss of the loved one. As well as feeling all our dreams hopes and plan for the future have suddenly gone. This can leave us feeling empty with no control of what is happening. ACCECPTANCE
There is a difference between acceptant and resignation. We can start to set new goals look more to the future as we now realise that life must go on. We may still have thoughts of our loved ones, but these thoughts now become less frequent and tense with every day that passes. You start to get more energy and motivation now begins to increase as you start to look foward to your future again. This may take time but eventually it will happen
HELP WITH THE FUNERAL. One session of Hypnotherapy can help you to get through the funeral
My approach is compassionate and understanding
Through Bereavement Therapy we hope to make the process less painful and more manageable. If you feel any of the above is familiar - please call Stuart -+44 7825 599340 / +44 121 403 3163 for a free - confidential telephone conversation
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