ABSTRACT
Strategic intervention is a meta-therapeutic approach by which the therapist draws on today’s broad knowledge base of psychotherapy to intervene following bereavement. Leave-taking ritual is an approach that is based on the significance of ritual as a means of transitioning to and reordering a life shattered by loss. As practiced, leave-taking rituals create a structured framework for the adaptive progress of the natural mourning process. The rituals make use of letter writing to the deceased and finding place for “linking objects” to facilitate mourning. In this chapter, we present three cases to illustrate the principles and provide the reader with additional material for the therapist arsenal.
