Pet Loss Grief Support Animals in our Hearts Animal Communication Teresa Wagner

  • You should try to hear the name the Holy Ones have for things.
    People name everything according to the number of legs they have.
    The Holy Ones name them according to what they have inside. ~ Rumi

Grief Support Competencies

original artwork courtesy of Jan
original artwork courtesy of Jan

Sometimes, we truly need angels. Real angels. And when we do, they come. Yet, even with the presence of Divine support we still need each other as humans. We still need to be available to help one another, and in the best possible ways known to help. In 1990, while facilitating grief recovery workshops and bereavement support groups for a hospice in Salinas, California, I conducted a Competency Analysis Study to identify the knowledge base, skills, and personal qualities, values and beliefs shown to effectively support grieving individuals. The study included interviews and surveys with over fifty grief authors/experts, counselors, nurses, volunteers and grievers, internal and external to the hospice. Together, we tried to determine what characteristics of helpers to those who grieve really make a difference. The list of competencies created is not meant to be cast in stone or exhaustive, but can serve as a comprehensive profile used to assess how we can grow, where we might strengthen our ability to help. My hope it that it is useful to you and those you serve.

You may want to consider taking the

Grief Support Skills Teleclass with Teresa

~ Available live and On Demand ~

Profile of Grief Support Competencies

Competency Analysis Study results identifying the knowledge, skills and personal qualities, values and beliefs shown to effectively support grieving individuals

EMPATHY

  • Non-verbal and verbal expression of warmth, understanding, care and compassion
  • Ability to acknowledge and validate the grieving persons' feelings and process as normal

LISTENING

  • Ability to actively listen or reflect back the feelings and experiences expressed by the grieving person without giving advice, telling one's own story, or interrupting Willing to hear the other person's experience (perhaps many times) without imposing opinions, values, or solutions Comfortable with silence
  • Ability to ask open ended questions to allow the griever to talk

NON-JUDGMENTAL

  • Acceptance of others' values, beliefs and spiritual practices regarding death and grief
  • Acceptance of others' emotional response to death
  • Comfort with a wide range of responses, from stoic denial to hysteria, however similar or different from our own
  • Respect for the others' process, allowing them to go through it their own way
  • Refraining from expressing one's own beliefs and values as the "answer to healing", or imposing one's personal beliefs in any way

COMFORTABLE WITH TEARS

  • Understands crying as a natural, healthy part of grief
  • Takes no action to stop or discourage others' crying
  • Allows and supports crying; offers supports such as tissue, a private place to cry, make arrangements to have someone drive a crying person home, etc.
  • Comfortable crying oneself

SELECTIVE USE OF SELF DISCLOSURE

  • Ability and willingness to share own grief experiences, selectively, for specific purposes:
    • To build rapport, to respond to others' inquiry about our experiences, to show our own vulnerability
    • Not to advise, get support for self, or preach about how well we've handled our grief, etc.

UNDERSTANDING, ACCEPTANCE AND MAINTENANCE OF BOUNDARIES BETWEEN SELF AND OTHER

  • Comfortable not "fixing" the other; recognizes that responsibility to heal lies with the other.
  • Can cope with intense emotions of others; can feel compassion for other without taking on their pain.
  • Does not feel guilty about own well being and own loved ones well being in the face of others' suffering
  • Use own spiritual beliefs and practices in private to help self.
  • Use own spiritual beliefs and practices unobtrusively (i.e. silent prayer) to help others; does not impose. It may be appropriate to say "I'll say a prayer for you." It is not appropriate to say "Well, you know she's with the Lord now and very happy." The former is an unobtrusive offer of support which may be comforting or at worst received neutrally. The latter is an imposition of beliefs and can be offensive to those with differing beliefs.
  • Can offer support and resources to others without attachment to how and whether they're used

SELF AWARENESS AND SELF CARE

  • Clarity of own values about grief and related issues of dying, death, life after death and spirituality.
  • Identification of any incomplete grief of one's own and commitment to work through own losses.
  • In touch with and very honest with self about one's own reactions to death, personal beliefs about death and an afterlife, and personal philosophies about what really helps us heal from grief
  • Seek support regularly for self to counter-balance the exposure to painful, emotionally intense situations.

APPROPRIATE PHYSICAL EXPRESSION OF COMPASSION

  • Awareness of the healing power of physical touch (i.e. gentle touch to others' hand, arm, shoulder)
  • Comfortable giving and receiving hugs yet always respecting boundaries of others (i.e. ask: "May I give you a hug?"; being careful to hug in a way that could not be construed as a sexual advance)
  • Awareness of the healing power of soft and loving eye contact. Ability to let your love and compassion shine through your eyes.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE GRIEF RECOVERY PROCESS

  • Awareness of the diverse range of feelings and reactions others may have in response to loss
  • Familiarity with models and paradigms of grief recovery, i.e. phases, tasks of healing from grief.

FAMILIARITY WITH AND REFERRAL TO GRIEF SUPPORT RESOURCES

  • Ability to locate and refer resources of grief support to those in need: Books, tapes, support groups, internet resources, hotlines, etc.