ABSTRACT
Neither the psychoanalytic nor the general psychotherapy literature has adequately addressed the nature of psychotherapy for clients who face major losses in their lives through death, divorce, ailing health, or lost jobs. During the 1990s Elaine Childs-Gowell conducted a series of workshops on the psychotherapy of grief at the annual conference of the International Transactional Analysis Association. The psychotherapy of grief and loss is most effective when done within a relational context whether it is face-to-face with an interested other or through an imagined conversation with the internal representation of the other. That context may be in the interpersonal contact between client and therapist, or in the empathetic communication between client and group members, or in the honest communication between the client and the internal image of the significant other. The chapter outlines several models for the treatment of grief that are described in the professional literature.
