ABSTRACT
Caregivers who work with people experiencing grief must confront their own losses, fears, hopes, and dreams surrounding both life and death. Whenever people attempt to respond to the needs of people in grief, the chances are slim that one can, or should, avoid the stress of emotional involvement. Sometimes, caregivers of the bereaved discover churned up feelings related to influences such as bereavement overload, unrealistic expectations about helping all the grief-stricken people in one's community, or perhaps discovering that, at times, one cares more about the mourner's healing process than the person seem to care. The result of these influences is potentially what one might term bereavement caregiver burn-out. Low energy for the clergy-person, or other caregiver, is often difficult to acknowledge because this is opposite of the high energy level required to meet demands that are both self-imposed and experienced from the outside. Another common symptom of bereavement caregiver burn-out is a sense of omnipotence and feeling indispensable.
