'Grief is alive, wild, untamed': How to support a partner who's lost a loved one
A reader asks: 'How do you help a spouse struggling with the recent death of a parent? When do you encourage therapy, (or) further help?'
www.latimes.com
Psychotherapist Megan Devine, who wrote “It’s OK That You’re Not OK” after losing her partner, Matt, said it’s important to meet the grieving person where they’re at.
You want to support them — not try to rid them of their difficult feelings. “We know on some level we can’t make this go away, but we are going to try, and that makes things come out sideways,” Devine told me. You absolutely can’t fix this for your partner, which should take some of the pressure off.
What you should do is accept their feelings, even if you don’t understand them. “The most powerful thing we can do is just bear witness without moving people from where they are,” said grief and trauma therapist Ajita Robinson.
