Description:
The Grief Toolbox
Every year 12.000 children and youth under 25 lose one parent (CBS, 2022) and 60% of college students lose at least one person close to them by the end of their academic career (Bistricean & Shea, 2021).
Grief is learning how to intertwine an irreversible loss in your life. Grief is not only about losing a person. Different experiences can lead to grief. Think of divorce, a break up, slowly losing a person due to dementia, having to leave your home country, loss of health, losing your job, and so on. In everyday life everyone has to cope with some form of bereavement.
But do you know how you can cope with your grief?
According to Stroebe and Schut’s Dual Process Model of Grief, grief is the oscillation between the loss-oriented and restoration-oriented sides (Stroebe & Schut, 2010). The oscillation between the activities is beneficial to a positive grief processes. The grief toolbox can be used to familiarize people with the dual process model of grief.
First the client starts searching for their emotions, feelings and activities representing their loss and places the icons in the bowl. The same process is followed for restoration side. Together the therapist and client look at the moving scale, representing the oscillation between loss and restoration. The therapists then starts the conversation on how the client interprets the icons and to let the client reflect on what this means for them. When this conversation comes to an end, the corresponding drawer opens. The client takes out the leaflet and starts to fill in their loss and restoration activities. The client takes this home to look back at, at a later time.
The Grief Toolbox
Cultivating resilience from the oscillation between loss and restoration
Puck Verbeek 