Understanding grief counseling in the family

Life is full of losses from the time of birth to the day of death. Most of the other losses could be recovered except the loss arising from death. No one is immune to the loss from death. Death is therefore a fact that each family member should understand and accept that at one time or another the pain of death will be experienced. Family members respond to news of death differently depending on their relationship to the deceased as well as personality. After death grieving and mourning sets in which require technical knowledge on the part of the counselor to help the bereaved person to regain normalcy through verbalization of what happened. The bereaved person goes through a series of stages which counselor can help through so as not to be fixated in one stage. Various techniques and skills are used to help the grieving person in the journey towards healing. The current paper examines the meaning of death, its place in the family as well as the role of counseling interventions that are specially needful in overcoming the feelings and reactions arising from the death in the family. It is hoped that this paper will significantly contribute new ideas on the relevance of counseling during the circumstances of death hence encourage family members to utilize this great service for their own good.