ABSTRACT
How do we cope when someone close to us has died? Suddenly the child we have loved and nurtured so adoringly has at the age of 20, so full of life and promise for the future, been killed in a car crash. Our partner of 40 years who has been friend, lover, companion and the mainstay of our life is no longer there to share the minutiae of our day. The mother we depended on so completely, who always dropped everything to be available, is not there now to meet our needs, to share our joys and miseries. Despite knowing that we will all die – the one certainty we share – death can come as an overwhelming shock, shattering our way of being and leaving us stricken with grief; a grief that can be so unbearably painful that it more or less immobilizes us. Many of us cope with our grief with the support of friends and family. But for some, outside support is deemed necessary by the bereaved person themselves or those close to them.
