ABSTRACT
For the relatively small number of people who require psychotherapeutic help to resolve conflicts stirred by loss, treatments range from brief psychotherapy to psychoanalysis. In order to be effective, such therapy will take the time to explore what the loss means to the individual and how mourning became complicated. Regrief therapy generally takes two to four months, during which time the patient is seen three to four times a week. Since the patient is preoccupied with the lost other, one of the first goals of regrief therapy is to help the patient distinguish between her- or himself and the lost person. Throughout the process, dreams provide a clue to where the patient is in regrief. The author's favorite brief psychotherapy experience concerns a gentle middle-aged woman called Louise. Thus, Louise saw herself as getting the short end of the stick, the victim of foul play. Her adaptation was to become a do-gooder.
