Bereavement specialist says help grieving people by listening

By Mary Ann Wyand

How do you cope with the traumatic loss of a loved one?

What do you say to people who have lost loved ones through a variety of sudden death experiences?

Steven Tibbetts, a nationally known psychotherapist, educator and funeral director from Minneapolis, discussed “Understanding and Responding to Traumatic Loss—Understanding the Assumptive World” and “Interventions for Traumatic Loss—How to be Supportive, Do’s and Don’ts” during the archdiocesan Catholic Cemeteries Association’s fourth annual Mission Day on Feb. 1 at Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House in Indianapolis.

Traumatic loss differs from other types of grief experiences, Tibbetts said, because bereaved people initially respond in different ways to the shocking news that their loved one has died unexpectedly as a result of violent or dangerous circumstances, such as accidents, suicide or murder.

It’s better to listen first then offer condolences later, he said, because traumatic loss numbs the grieving person’s senses.

“Psychological trauma is produced by overwhelming the [person’s] coping mechanisms,” Tibbetts said. “The [person’s] denial system acts like a filtering mechanism. It helps the person let go of reality slowly. Denial is used for letting go, not holding on.”

Tibbetts explained that when people are told bad news, they often say, “I can’t believe it.”

This verbalization of denial doesn’t mean that they don’t believe the bad news, he said. It simply means that they haven’t had enough time to process the loss and respond to it because of psychological numbing.

“In grief, it’s the event, the death, [that people struggle with], but with trauma, it’s the emotions,” Tibbetts said. “People remain numb after a traumatic event anywhere from 72 hours to a week, depending on what they witnessed or experienced.”

To help people cope with traumatic loss, he said, ask them, “Tell me what that’s like for you?” Then be prepared to listen for as long as necessary.

National statistics indicate that grief can cause physical and mental illnesses, Tibbetts said. “Fifty percent of all the people who have major medical procedures will have [experienced] the death of a loved one within the last five years. Twenty percent of all the people … in doctor’s offices every day have had a major loss within a year. It’s staggering.”

Denial is “a very important piece” of grieving, he said. “Oftentimes, clinicians or helpers become concerned when people have a strong denial system. [But they need to] leave it alone. Let them have their reality as they see their reality … [unless it is] extremely distorted.”

People have “built-in anesthesia” that helps them cope with traumatic loss, Tibbetts said. “People will say, ‘I don’t feel anything.’ In crisis [situations], people don’t panic for the most part. Only about 10 percent of the people panic. Some of the rest are numb. Some are in denial. But others rise to the occasion of dealing with whatever has happened. That’s pretty phenomenal.”

Post-traumatic stress disorder is the phenomenon that occurs as a normal response to an abnormal situation, he said, and people experience flashbacks, nightmares, “hyper-startle” responses and anxiety.

“But what’s traumatic for you may not be traumatic for me,” Tibbetts said. “We know that from studying the survivors of the New York disaster [on 9-11]. In the general population, about 7 or 8 percent of the people will have post-traumatic stress disorder at some time in their life.”

People process grief and trauma by searching for meaning in life, he said, but there is no closure in bereavement because survivors miss their deceased loved ones every day for the rest of their lives.

“How do you find meaning when you’re numb?” Tibbetts asked. “The survival instinct gets us through the motions, but we don’t have any way of getting the meaning back.”

The process of dealing with trauma, like the process of dealing with grief, involves finding meaning in the loss, he said, and beginning reconstruction of the bereaved person’s life in new and different ways.

“The Catholic [funeral] rituals are very rich,” Tibbetts said. “The more rituals that are associated with the death, the more [that survivors] participate in the rituals, the better people fare. We learned this from studying and interviewing the bereaved. Ritual is extremely important in [processing] the realization of what death means.”

To accept the death of loved ones, he said, it’s important for grieving people to spend an adequate amount of time with their loved one’s body before the funeral and to receive support from family members, friends, clergy and professional counselors.

“Grief is a continuum that goes on forever,” Tibbetts said. “Just as love is forever, grief is forever.” †