Reading H

Harris, D. L., & Winokuer, H. R. (2016). Working with emotions – Yours and theirs. In Principles and practice of grief counselling (2nd ed.) (pp. 125-141). Springer Publishing.

Probably one of the biggest concerns for counselors who begin to work in the area of bereavement is how to work with strong emotions as they arise in clients. Although we have earlier shared that not everyone will grieve through the sharing and expression of their feelings, many clients will experience strong emotions as part of their grief. In this chapter, we wish to look at the role that emotions might play in the grieving process, and how counselors can help their clients to benefit from working constructively with their feelings.

Many bereaved clients will feel overwhelmed by their feelings, and they will come to counseling in hopes of learning to contain their feelings. The good news is that clients can often learn how to manage their feelings, but the hard part is that they learn to do this by first having to focus on them. In their everyday world, bereaved individuals are often given much advice and receive many messages that minimize their experience, probably with the intent of helping them to manage their feelings. However, in the counseling process, we often do just the opposite, and a lot of time is often spent exploring and gaining insight from feelings rather than trying to avoid or minimize them. Thus, what may occur is that we might, at first, intensify the feelings because we pay attention to them, and even focus on them instead of trying to diminish and contain them for the sake of social propriety. The identification of and work with feelings can be very rewarding and empowering for clients, ultimately moving them into deeper work that allows them to recognize their strengths and potential for growth.

There is some discussion about the difference between feelings and emotions. Typically, feelings are viewed as faster than emotions in terms of response (the response time of the feeling; how fast it responds to real world stimulation), and it takes someone less time to recognize feelings because they are instant reactions to stimuli that occur in the present moment. Emotions tend to be viewed as a longer-term effort, after an individual has had an opportunity to reflect upon feelings that have surfaced, and meaning or significance has therefore been assigned to the felt experience. Feelings are closer to sensory stimulation; thus, if you touch something, you feel it almost instantaneously, which is a fast reaction. An emotion could represent a deeper experience because it might affect more of you, and you may become more invested in it because you have delved into and reflected upon the experience more, but that is only because it is now also attached to your cognitions and interpretations more. For example, depres-sion will have more of an impact upon you than just an isolated feeling of sadness. We find these distinctions are mostly academic, though, and for the purposes of this chapter, we will use these two terms interchangeably, as both feelings and emotions are important in our discussion, and the work with feelings and emotions in the counseling setting is going to involve the same process.

Thinking Critically About Feelings

Individuals who live in Western society tend to think of feelings as primitive, irrational, weak, pathetic, and an indication that someone is out of control. Stop and think for a moment about how many derogatory terms and phrases there are to describe someone who readily expresses emotions and what these phrases imply:

“He lost it.”
“She was hysterical.”
“He went nuts.”
“You need to get a grip.”

The implication is clear: if you express strong emotion, you are out of control, and you need to regain your composure quickly. Stoicism and rationality are espoused as true virtues—for example, “He’s holding up so well” or “She is staying strong for the kids.” Individuals who deny their emotions and function solely from an analytical, rational perspective are seen as smarter, more com-petent, and desirous. Feltham (2010) ventured to address the issue of emotion in counseling by stating that the most effective counselors tend to be those who are more naturally intuitive and emotionally responsive, both characteristics that are more acceptable to feminine socialization patterns. He concluded that most counseling theory is generated by men, and placed cognitive processing at the top of what is most desirable in counseling practice. He also stated:

We have previously discussed the importance of the counselor’s focused and compassionate presence within the counseling relationship. Genuine caring and compassion are feeling-oriented, and clients are very likely to “know the difference between a counselor who really cares deeply and one who either struggles to do so or who is primarily cognitively rather than emotionally oriented” (Feltham, 2010, p. 184). This statement is not meant to indicate that counselors who are more cognitively focused will be ineffective, but to emphasize the importance of being able to access your own feelings and intuition in order to respond in kind to clients’ feelings and emotion states. As counselors, we will be touched and moved by the pain and suffering of our clients, and we do share a common human lived experience with them. However, showing emotions, especially openly with clients, is often seen as a sign of weakness or lack of professionalism (Curtis, Matise, & Glass, 2003). It is important to place feelings into the appropriate social and cultural context—and in most modern Western societies, feelings are devalued and stigma-tized, so it is important to look critically at how intellect and cognition are privileged, and emotions and intuition are devalued—and yet both of these entities are important aspects of the whole human experience.

Functional Feelings

In the therapeutic setting, feelings can be seen as valuable indicators of what is most important to the client’s process. They give an indication of what Gendlin (1978) referred to as the “felt sense” of the client in a situation, and when you are able to identify and focus on the client’s feelings, you are probably working very directly with the places of most concern and difficulty to the client. You may recall our earlier discussion of the use of immediacy in the counseling process in Chapter 5. Immediacy includes working in the here and now, with the feelings that are currently arising in the session. Yalom (2002) stated that working in the here and now, noting feelings that are present in the client during the session, enables the most potential for insight, growth, and change in clients.

In the counseling session, it is important to help clients learn to befriend their feelings and try to learn from them. Although not everyone experiences strong feelings in response to significant life events, when intense feelings are present and we try to block them, we can end up feeling more anxious. Suppressing strong feelings takes a lot of energy, and it can “backfire” when the defenses that function to contain the feelings are overloaded in some way, and the suppressed feelings can end up being released in a flood that can be overwhelming to the person and to those around him or her. We need to be able to experience feelings appropriately—in a way that is constructive, in the proper environment, with the ability to reflect upon them as well. It is important to connect compassionately with the feelings that are present in order for defenses to soften in a safe environment, and thus lessen the anxiety that they may cause. Feelings tend to “live” in our bodies, and we often experience a physical sensation when strong feelings are present. Sometimes, clients will experience a “charge” with an emotion, which can be described as a strong physical association with a certain feeling. We inter-pret this “charge” as the feeling attempting to get your attention that something important is happening and needs your focus. People often remark about feeling nauseous or their stomach being upset, jittery or shaky, hot or cold, clammy, or heavy in their chest. You may have heard of the “fight-flight” response to stress, which is the way our bodies respond when we feel acutely stressed, frightened, or threatened. There is a direct link between how we feel and how our bodies respond, and we can often use our bodies to help us identify our feelings and to channel them in ways that are healthy and constructive. In many ways, it is much easier to be “in our heads,” but experiencing life from a cognitive orientation alone means we are denied the full and rich depth of being a complete person, which involves an integration of our thoughts, feelings, and physicality.

Emotional Intelligence

For the past century, we have become very focused on developing our intellectual abilities. With the introduction of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test in 1916 (SB5) (Fancher, 1985) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scales (the WAIS in 1939 and the WISC for children in 1949) (Frank, 1983), people focused on “IQ” as an indicator of who was smart, who was most likely to succeed, and who would be revered socially. Although Wechsler especially tried to look at more global capacities, such as the ability to solve real-life problems and to navigate successfully within one’s environment, the focus was still mostly upon rationality and cognitive reasoning. Emotional components of the human experience were seen as mostly irrelevant to the measure of cognitive potential that was present in each individual.

The value placed upon cognitive and rational problem solving have become globalized to expectations about a person’s character, ability to navigate social situations, and a general belief that people who are “smart” by these standards are those who should be revered, emulated, and given social deference. However, in reality, these expectations do not exactly work out in terms of personal success, social integration, and in the cultivation of compassion and empathy with others. We can all think of individuals in various professions who would be consider-ed brilliant in terms of their intellectual capacity, academic accomplishments, and rational problem-solving abilities, who, nonetheless, have a great deal of difficulty managing their personal relationships, getting along with others, or who are not able to work with others in settings that require teamwork. So intellectual prowess is admirable, but it leaves something missing in terms of relating to others. The example of Dr. Gregory House in the television show House (Egan & Alexander, 2005) would provide a good illustration of someone who is intellectually brilliant, but socially crippled and unable to successfully navigate his relationships with his colleagues and individuals who try to be his friend. Although this television show is meant to be entertaining, it is a good example of how our social emphasis upon intellectual intelligence and cognitive processing are not the measures of a person who is successful in life.

The point to this discussion is that we live in a society that highly prizes intellectual capacity while dismissing social and emotional capacities, which are not only important, but also necessary assets for a person to live in harmony with others, and to be able to engage in relationships that are meaningful and reciprocal. Most of our relationships with others are predicated upon our ability to care, to empathize, and to respond to others in a meaningful way. Most attachment behaviours are also demonstrated through emotionally mediated behaviors. Grief is often viewed as a wound to our attachment system, and the responses to separation and a broken attachment are often emotional ones.

The first use of the term “emotional intelligence” is usually attributed to a doctoral thesis entitled A Study of Emotion: Developing Emotional Intelligence (Payne, 1985). Other authors later explored the concept of “emotional intelligence” (sometimes referred to as either EI or EQ) (Goleman, 1995; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2008). Instruments were developed to measure various aspects of EI, including the emotional competence inventory, which was created in 1999, and the emotional and social competency inventory, which was created in 2007. There are also several self-report and self-assessment scales available to the public via the Internet (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009; Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008).

Goleman’s (1995) exploration of EI is probably the best-known and is popular because of the publication of his popular book of the same name and the release of a secondary book entitled Social Intelligence (Goleman, 2006). According to Goleman, to be successful requires the effective awareness and understanding of yourself, including your feelings, intentions, and responses, as well as the ability to understand the feelings and responses of others. The awareness of EI and its cultivation are important in grief counseling because it is very important for both counselors and their clients to develop a capacity to work with emotions that fosters competence rather than flooding because of emotional overloading. Working intelligently with emotions that arise with clients is a process that involves assisting clients to:

1. identify the primary emotion(s) that is/are currently present,
2. be able to name and/or describe the intensity of the emotion(s),
3. find a way to work with emotions in a healthy manner, and
4. seek to understand the message or meaning that comes from the emotion(s).

It is amazing to realize how little attention has been paid to the emotional content of our experiences and how readily we try to suppress or deny feelings rather than learning to work with them constructively. Many clients do not really know how to begin identifying their feelings and readily get stuck when asked what they are currently feeling. For example, a counselor might see a client clenching his fist, tightening his jaw, and becoming red in the face, only to find the client will respond to a question about how he is feeling with, “I don’t know … just upset, that’s all.” Learning to identify feelings may involve some education for our clients regarding how to accurately describe what they are feeling and what to do with the feelings that they do recognize in themselves. A good place to start might be to share with clients a “feeling vocabulary list” to help them to learn to identify what they are feeling (see Figure 8.1). We often try to simplify things by suggesting that there are four basic feeling states: sad, mad, glad, and scared. You can then brainstorm different words that could be used to describe varying aspects of each of these feeling states. We often suggest you begin with words that describe the least intense sensation of that feeling “cluster” and gradually progress to the most intense description of that feeling. For example, feeling words to describe mad might include irritated, annoyed, frustrated, angry, enraged, and furious.

There are different ways to help clients to work constructively with their emotions. Some-times, just naming the feeling and talking about it can be enough for a client to address what is being brought to the surface by that emotion. As mentioned in the previous section, emotions sometimes carry a “charge” with them that we experience physically. Clients can sometimes feel intimidated by this intense sensation, afraid that in exploring their emotions, they will lose control over them, or they will say or do something that is not congruent with how they view themselves. Choosing a way to work constructively with different emotions needs to be based upon the client’s personality and comfort level with the counselor, and this process can be facilitated by drawing from the strengths and interests of the client, that is, if the client likes to write, draw, paint, listen to music, and so on. We will discuss more specific ideas later on in our chapter that explores various therapeutic modalities. The following are some ideas about helping clients to identify and work constructively with their feelings:

• Help clients express feelings—invite them to explore their feelings, talk about their feelings, and give an affirmation about their right to have feelings.
  “That must have been a very stressful time for you. As you remember the events, how do you feel about what happened?”
• Alert the client to the importance of nonverbal clues as indicators of feelings:
  “You tell me you are pretty well over it, but I notice your eyes are full of tears.”
• Help clients to begin identifying feelings and their intensity when they are in the sessions with you:
  “You have said that you were a bit upset by what happened, but as I watch the expression on your face, I wonder if you are really pretty angry.”

Abandoned Abused Accepted Affectionate Afraid Agitated Alarmed Alienated Alone Amazed Amused Angry Anguished Annoyed Anxious Appreciative Ashamed At ease Awful Awkward Baffled Battered Belittled Below par Bewildered Bitter Blue Bored Bottled up Branded Broken Calm Capable Cast off Cheapened Cheerful Competent Confident Conflicted Confused Constrained Contented Criticized Crushed Debased Defeated Deficient Deflated Dejected

Demoralized Depressed Desolate Despair Desperate Despised Despondent Destroyed Discontented Discouraged Discredited Disgraced Disinterested Disliked Dismal Dissatisfied Distrustful Distressed Disturbed Done for Doubtful Downhearted Downtrodden Dread Dreadful Ecstatic Elevated Embarrassed Empty Enraged Enthusiastic Envious Euphoric Exalted Excited Excluded Exhausted Exhilarated Exposed Fantastic Fearful Fine Fit Foolish Forlorn Forsaken Frantic Friendly Frightened

Frustrated Furious Futile Glad Glorious Good Grand Grateful Gratified Great Guilty Happy Hateful Hatred Helpful Helpless Hesitant Hindered Hopeless Horny Horrible Humble Humiliated Hurt Hypocritical Ignored Ill at ease Impaired Impatient Impotent Imprisoned Inadequate Incapable Incompetent Ineffective Inept Inferior Inflamed Insecure Insignificant In the dumbs Intimidated Irritated Jazzed Jealous Jilted Jittery Joyful Jumpy Laughed at

Left out Lonely Lonesome Longing Loved Loving Lousy Low Mad Maligned Miffed Miserable Mistreated Misunderstood Needed Negative Neglected Nervous Numb Obsolete Offended On edge Oppressed Optimistic Ostracized Outraged Overlooked Overwhelmed Panicky Passionate Perplexed Pleased Powerless Pressured Proud Put down Puzzled Reborn Rebuked Regretful Rejected Rejuvenated Relaxed Relieved Resentful Restless Revengeful Ridiculed Ridiculous

Rotten Run down Sad Satisfied Scared Selfish Sensual Serene Sexy Shaky Shocked Sickened Skeptical Slandered Spiteful Startled Surprised Suspicious Swamped Tearful Tense Terrible Terrified Threatened Thrilled Tormented Transcendent Trusting Uncertain Uncomfortable Uncooperative Underrated Understood Uneasy Unhappy Unimportant Unloved Unqualified Unsatisfied Unsure Upset Uptight Wanted Warmhearted Washed up Whipped Worried Worthless Worthy

^{Figure 8.1 Feeling Vocabulary List}

• Help clients to sort out confused or conflicted feelings.
  “If I were to draw a chart of how you are feeling, what percentage of your feelings would be angry, what part hurt, and what part afraid?”
• Help clients to gain an understanding that they can have more than one feeling at a time, and that it is normal to have dichotomous feelings occurring at the same time (i.e., happy and sad, excited and scared, etc.).
  “In the midst of feeling devastated by what has happened since your husband’s death, can you think of some people and activities that would be positive for you now?”
• Use feelings to help reconnect clients with the deceased person(s), if that would be beneficial.
  “Pretend that you are your wife and I will pretend to be you. Can you think of what she might be feeling if she were with you right now?”

Once a client has identified how he or she is feeling and explored the feeling in the session, there is usually a “message” that is behind the feeling. It may be simple, such as anxiety that results from realizing that you are now alone at night after your spouse died and you need to do what is necessary to feel safe and connected to others when you are home. Or, it might be that what is happening has brought up experiences that have left you feeling abandoned or highly vulnerable, and you need to be in touch with someone from your past to work these issues through, if possible. As a counselor, remember that you are always listening with your intuitive “rabbit ears” (Yalom, 2002), both for the content that is being said in words and the experience that is occurring through the nonverbal cues and emotional tone of what the client is saying.

Working With Different Emotions

Important guidelines for counselors to have in place are that they need to be aware of their emotions when they come to the surface, to have cultivated an ability to work constructively with their own emotions, and to apply the same “rules” about honoring emotional content and material in their lives as they expect from their clients. These things will affect how a counselor will be able to facilitate emotional work and process with clients.

When you begin to sense that there is a lot of emotion present in the client, you may try to slow the session down. Empathic responses or immediacy may be used depending upon what the client is experiencing. The client may only stay with the feelings for 5 seconds, but in staying with these feelings, even if for a very brief time, there is often a sense of competency and relief afterwards. Emotions are often intensified in the sessions, and the client is invited to go to a deeper level, closer to his or her core feelings. Stay with the feelings as long as the client tolerates it and stays connected to them in the session. Once the client begins to shift out of the feelings, talk about what he or she felt and put it into a context. A good suggestion for follow-up with clients after they have gone deeply into emotional work is to first validate that it is hard work, and then to ask what the experience was like for them. Often, working in this way with emotions brings a sense of exhaustion, but also a sense of clarity. After exploring feelings, a shift may occur in the client’s perceptions, although it may not be apparent right away.

If your client is struggling with intense emotions, try to normalize the feelings and assure him or her that these feelings will not continue with this same intensity and magnitude forever. One helpful statement might be “It is very difficult and intense right now for you, but it will not always be this way down the road.” If the client has attempted to keep emotions under control by suppressing them for a long time, initially experiencing the emotions may carry the fear that he or she will be overwhelmed, or rendered nonfunctional or paralyzed by these feelings. Remind your clients that they have the choice about how they want to handle their emotions, and provide modeling in the session that allows them to focus on the emotions, and then get some distance from them in alternating waves. Normalize clients’ concerns that the feelings can be scary and that this is difficult work.

As we discussed earlier in the section on resistance, you must be respectful of people’s defenses, and your goal is not to insist that people emote, but to recognize when clients need your assistance in working constructively with the emotions that are present. You, as the counselor, need to be able to help the client find what she or he needs both internally for control and externally for release of the emotional material. There are times when clients need help in containing their emotions (different from suppression), especially when they are overwhelmed or feeling unsafe (Kennedy-Moore & Watson, 2001). We will explore the issue of containment further when we discuss trauma and grief overlaps. We will also discuss some specific therapeutic modalities that may help clients to work constructively with their emotions later on. We recognize that once clients begin to focus on their story and what has brought them to counseling, feelings often rise to the surface readily. It is hoped that this chapter will help you, as the counselor, to be open to your clients’ experiences of emotional material and be able to facilitate your client’s process with quiet confidence and compassion. Remember that most people want a deeper connection with their inner self and that usually occurs by working with emotions.

Suggestions For Specific Emotions

As we believe that feelings/emotions serve a purpose, it might be helpful to look at some of the ways that feeling states might be reinterpreted as informative and positive to clients and their experiences, and to also provide some practical suggestions for counselors in working with emotions.

• Fear—functions to help in self-protection, and it often arises when we do not feel safe. It is important to sort out old fears from what has happened in the past versus anxiety about what is happening in the present, and listen to what has happened in the past about how the fear is being interpreted in the current situation. For example, if a client has had a difficult situation with other helping professionals, the anxiety that is present in the session may be related to fear of how you might respond rather than to something more general in his or her life experience. It is important to remember that you get afraid for a reason and the first consideration when a client is fearful is to ensure that she or he feels safe, first with himself or herself, then with you in the session, and then in his or her environment and experiences. There is a difference between fear and generalized anxiety. Fear is usually associated with something specific, even if the trigger for the fear may seem elusive at first. Anxiety tends to be more generalized and does not usually have a specific focus, although the anxiety may transfer to various situations when it is intensified.
  
  When people are afraid, they may have a sense of “going cold” inside and their hands and feet may also feel cold or numb. Some people are agitated by fear and others are paralyzed by it, so people may speak very fast and seem keyed up, or they may actually come across as very contained and shut down. It is only with time and gentle exploration you may have a deeper understanding of the source of the fear or the background to the anxiety that your client is experiencing. Breath is associated with fear, and you will often notice that when a client becomes more anxious, breathing may become more rapid and shallow, or the person may actually hold his or her breath without even realizing it. It can sometimes be helpful for the counselor to breathe along with the client as he or she shares his or her story, and if the counselor notices that he or she is not getting enough air when following the client’s breathing pattern, it might be an opportunity to say something like, “let’s just take a deep breath together and slow things down a bit, OK?”
  
  When clients feel anxious, they often have a hard time hearing you or taking in what you are sharing with them, and they may not remember much of what has been said in the session. Keeping things slow and calm and repeating things that are said a few times might be helpful. Be very clear when you speak, and make sure the client is able to hear and understand what you are saying by checking in several times during the session. People who are habitually in fear often dissociate, meaning they are physically in the room, but seem to have become absent psychologically and/ or emotionally. The task then is for them to stay with it, work gently and quietly at the source if possible, and reframe the experience as necessary. Frequent dissociation in the sessions may mean that the client has a history of trauma, and unless you are trained as a therapist in this area of work, you could risk more harm than good if you push a client who is reexperiencing traumatic material as a result of the sessions. We will discuss this issue in greater detail later on, but this would be a time when you as the counselor need to be able to identify if a client’s needs may be beyond your professional scope or abilities.
  
  If you sense that your client is feeling overwhelmed by anxiety, you may also wish to help the person become more grounded in his or her body or in the room with you, so first start with the breath, maybe counting breaths together for a minute to start. You can then go through a “body scan” with the person, identifying feeling the feet on the floor, their weight in the chair, their arms on the chair or in their lap, feeling the tips of the fingers, and the sensation of breath from their nose, and then suggest that the client look around the room and name out loud several things that they see, such as the lamp, chair, picture, and so on. You can repeat this process as needed to help your client feel safe and supported by you and to help the client to feel physically and emotionally present in the session. Once the client is feeling more grounded, you can take the opportunity to talk about what you just did and why— and offer it as a tool that he or she can use if the anxiety returns and is overwhelming when not in a session. Relaxation tapes and CDs may be of help for clients to use when they are trying to go to sleep at night or at times when they are on their own and feel intense anxiety or panic. It might be a good idea for you to be familiar with specific relaxation tapes and CDs that you can recommend to your clients, especially ones that involve progressive relaxation and engage the body with the relaxation imagery or instructions.
• Anger—serves the purpose of a warning light and gives energy to get past blocks. Anger tells you that something is wrong, and it often comes up when a person feels that she or he has been violated or treated unfairly in some way. It can also be protective when a person feels threatened or vulnerable. It is very important that clients understand that anger is okay and that it is a natural part of the grieving process for many people. If you think of being robbed of something that is precious and irreplaceable to you, one of the first reactions you might experience would be anger toward someone who could do such a thing. Grief is no different, as when you lose someone you love or when you experience a significant loss, there is often a feeling of being robbed, being deprived, and a constant reminder of the unfairness in how events have unfolded— and anger would be a natural response to any of these scenarios. Care must be taken to disentangle anger from violence, and if your client has experienced violence associated with anger in the past, this emotion might be a scary and difficult experience.
  
  A good image of constructive anger is to describe it as a life force that can be empowering and highly informative of when a client needs to attend to what is happening in a very conscious way. Anger is like the mushroom that pushes through the concrete in the sidewalk— we sometimes need this energy in order to get through the blocks that are present and preventing us from moving forward. Constructively channeling anger is what has been at the core of some very well-known advocacy groups and support organizations, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, so it is important to understand that a person can experience anger and have it be a positive experience.
  
  Anger sometimes looks like fear because people may shut down out of fear of their anger. Often, the person who is angry turns red in the face, clenches fists, tightens the jaw, and may physically shake. The counselor can help to facilitate an understanding of where the anger is coming from and help the client direct it and focus it in order to release it. Verbal expression of angry feelings may be enough. Sometimes, however, it is helpful to engage the body to physically release the anger in order to clear it to get to the underlying issues. People often feel better afterwards. Writing or scribbling in a journal with heavy strokes, throwing paint at a canvas, breaking eggs with your hands in the sink, kneading and pounding bread dough, digging vigorously in the garden, hitting pillows, tearing paper, or yelling into a pillow may also help release it (these are all suggestions that have come from our clients!) The release is only really helpful if the client can then talk about the feeling and what is underneath it afterwards; physical release without meaning being attached to the activity may not provide the client with the clarity and understanding that is needed afterwards. Use of language is very important with anger as well. We have smiled as some of our most prim and proper clients chose very strong language to express some of these feelings, knowing that they would never talk like this outside of the session! Using strong language can be a form of release as well, so be aware of the possibility of expanding your feeling vocabulary in ways you might not have expected as a grief counselor!
• Sadness—is often more socially acceptable than anger, especially for women. In sadness, a person tends to retreat inside; sometimes, clients seem to “melt” into themselves when they express their sadness. It might be helpful for the client to have something to hold, such as a pillow, a small blanket or throw, or a stuffed animal. If clients experience deep, intense sadness, they may begin to sob heavily and rock back and forth. You are the supportive witness to their experience, and the importance of your presence should not be underestimated. Most people are very self-conscious when they are crying in front of another person, so rather than staring at the person when they are crying, we would suggest that you drop your gaze a little from their face to their shoulder or knees and wait patiently. You can breathe with the person silently. You can gently let the client know it is okay to cry and okay to feel this much. Let people breathe deeply and let the sadness out. Beginning counselors may feel a great urge at a time like this to jump in and “rescue” the person, but this may be the only time and place that the client can actually enter fully into the sadness without having to worry about what someone else thinks or feels as a result of the expression of such profound emotional pain.
  
  After experiencing deep sadness, the client may want contact, and it is very important to be clear about what the client wants and needs (not what the counselor wants and needs!) In my (D.L.H.) client office, I keep a chenille throw over the back of my chair. If a client goes into a place of deep sadness, I will sometimes take the throw and wrap it around their shoulders as a gentle form of contact that is nonintrusive to the client’s process. There is a tendency to come out of this type of expression slowly. It is important to reassure clients that they will have time at the end of the session to “regroup” before finishing the time together. It is also the counselor’s responsibility to ensure that the client has returned to a sense of normalcy before leaving the office and driving a car. Some of our clients choose to go for a brief walk to regroup after an intense session before getting into their car and driving away.
  
  One final suggestion for clients when they are experiencing strong emotions outside of the sessions is to find ways for them to recognize their feelings and work with them, but to also be able to contain them and bracket their feelings when necessary. Clients can have “grief drawers” in their homes, where they store pictures, music, memorabilia, and linking objects. When clients realize that strong feelings are arising, they can open the drawer and use these items to facilitate some of their process. Some clients may light candles when they are actively involved in this work— when the candle is lit, they focus their attention and emotional energy on the contents of the drawer and the associated feelings that arise from going there. Clients may choose to write about this experience in a journal and share it with you when they come for their next session. When they are done, they can blow out the candle, and put the things back in to the drawer, and close it shut. Clients can use music to do something similar— when a particular song is done, or the CD is finished, they actively move away from the emotional processing and consciously move into another room as a form of bracketing the experience.
  
  Clients need to know that they can enter deeply into their emotional experiences with competence and feel empowered by their emotions rather than crippled by them. Learning how to go deeply and then to come back out of the intensity is a valuable skill that can be helpful in this process.

What About the Counselor’s Feelings?

Our students often ask us if we have cried with our clients and how we feel about the counselor sharing his or her feelings with the client. On the surface, there is generally a perception that crying in professional settings is an indicator of lack of professionalism or a sign of weakness on the part of the counselor. The answer may be that it can be a good thing and can also be an indication of the counselor’s need to attend to personal issues that may need to be addressed (Curtis et al., 2003). As counselors, we are human beings, and we connect with our clients at a deep and empathic level. To hear stories of pain, suffering, and deprivation and not be affected would be highly unrealistic, and sometimes as we fully enter our clients’ world we will be deeply moved by their stories and experiences (Yalom, 2002). A normal human reaction might involve tears that fall as we listen to a client’s painful story, and these tears simply validate the depth of the client’s experience and our shared human connection. Problems occur if the client’s story triggers an area of vulnerability within the counselor, and the feelings that come to the surface for the counselor are not those in resonance with the client, but a personal reaction to the client’s material that is based on the needs and unresolved material in the counselor. Counselor’s feelings that take the focus of the session away from the client could be damaging to clients, and the counselor could inadvertently use the client to process his or her own unresolved emotional material, which is highly unethical. We will later discuss the role and value of supervision for counselors, which provides a safe place for the counselor to work through personal issues that arise in sessions with clients.

To summarize, we have explored how feelings and working with emotions in the counseling process can be a very important and empowering aspect of counseling bereaved clients. Counselors must have an understanding of their own feelings and experiences, and be comfortable working with clients when they enter into deeply intense emotional states, and be able to facilitate the constructive processing of these emotions as part of their work with grieving clients.

Glossary of Terms

Emotional intelligence the level of an individual’s ability or skill in the identify-cation, assessment, and management of the emotions of oneself, and to the reactions of the emotions of others. Feeling vocabulary ability to accurately identify and name a particular emotion in terms of its intensity and application to a given situation. “Felt sense” term identified by Gendlin to describe an unclear, preverbal sense of something significant as that “something” is experienced in the body. It is not the same as an emotion, as it is typically unclear and vague; and it is always more than any attempt to express it verbally. “Fight-flight” response also referred to as the acute stress response; bodily response to a perceived threat or acute stressor with a discharge of the sympathetic nervous system, priming the animal for fighting or fleeing in response to a threat.

Questions for Reflection

1. What were you taught about emotions when you were growing up? How has this learning in your formative years influenced how you handle your emotions, and the emotions of others?
2. Think of the four main domains or emotions (sad, mad, glad, and afraid) and look over the feeling vocabulary that was posted in this chapter. Which of these emotions is the most difficult for you personally? Which is most difficult for you to handle from someone else? How might your reactions to emotions affect your interactions with your clients?
3. What do you think is the difference between containing/bracketing emotions and suppressing emotions in the context of counseling?
4. Go to the following Web link to access an online test for emotional intelligence (EI) and take the test: http://testyourself.psychtests.com/ testid/2092. What were your thoughts and feelings as you took the online self-test? Can you think of examples in day-to-day functioning where EI would be valuable?