ABSTRACT

Some of the most important tasks of psychotherapy are grieving processes. The grieving is not just grieving for people who have died (although that is part of it), but grieving for, and eventually letting go of the past. Of course, this is easier said than done, and the process of grieving is often long and painful. What is often grieved over is the loss of relationship, the loss of opportunities gone forever. A number of psychotherapy models assume that the inability, or unwillingness to grieve forms a core part of a range of psychopathology, or that symptoms or dynamics in the therapy relationship can be understood as attempts to avoid the pain of grieving (Stark, 2000).