Is This Complicated Grief?

The important thing to know about grief, is that while it can feel awful, it is a healthy adaptive process of healing. It’s just your brain’s way of making sense of the loss and it helps us to learn what we value and leads us to reach out for comfort and relationship. So in a way grief is really just a helpful tool for processing the loss. Complicated grief on the other hand, can feel similar to grief, but it is in fact, very different from it. While grief is an adaptive process of making sense of a loss, complicated grief is actually a disruption of the grief process - it keeps you from processing a loss (it’s like a road block). Grief involves positive feelings and memories, and complicated grief generally makes it tough to be able to access the memory or loss in a way that enables you to have positive and honoring feelings. Also, grief is a reaction to losing something you value, complicated grief is a reaction to a negative narrative or cognition you have that has been surfaced by some element of the loss. Meaning that complicated grief is born out of a negative belief or experience that’s attached to the loss. It could be a negative belief we have about ourselves, or possibly the relationship we had with the person who has passed away or is no longer in our lives. Instead of processing the loss, Complicated Grief keeps us stuck in the process, unable to do the healing work of grieving. I'm Kati Morton, a licensed therapist making Mental Health videos! #katimorton #therapist #therapy MY BOOKS (in stores now) Traumatized https://geni.us/Bfak0j Are u ok? http://bit.ly/2s0mULy ONLINE THERAPY While I do not currently offer online therapy, BetterHelp can connect you with a licensed, online therapist, please visit: https://betterhelp.com/kati Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzBYOHyEEzlkRdDOSobbpvw/join PATREON https://www.katimorton.com/kati-morton-patreon/ YOU CAN SUPPORT THE CHANNEL BY SHOPPING WITH OUR AFFILIATE LINKS Instacart: https://www.instacart.oloiyb.net/y2j2GB Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/katimorton PARTNERSHIP Linnea Toney linnea@underscoretalent.com PLEASE READ If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call a local emergency telephone number or go immediately to the nearest emergency room.