Grief

Eventually everyone will experience what grief is. The loss of a close friend or family member indicates a deep notch into one’s life – People tend to react very differently towards loss. 

Although everybody experiences his or her grief individually, reactions towards loss resemble one another – at least in the same cultural context. This concerns process and duration. After a certain amount of time, it will become easier to master everyday tasks. Thus, grief is a painful, albeit natural process, often not requiring professional help.

Prolonged Grief

Prolonged grief disorder is at hand, if grief takes longer and is more intensive in comparison to most of the other people.

Patients report:

• Intensive longing or yearning after the deceased
• Loneliness since loss
• Difficulties accepting the loss
• Thoughts constantly rumination about the deceased
• Feelings of guilt or self-reproaches
• Avoidance of every memory, thoughts and emotions towards the deceased person and his or her death

Even several months after the loss, affected individuals do not notice any improvement and it remains difficult to master everyday life, thus professional help is required.

Therapy may help you to cope with the consequences of your loss better.

Our Offer

Different approaches are helpful when it comes to Prolonged Grief. Two treatments will be compared in “PROGRID”. The project is supported by the German Research Foundation (German: Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft, DFG).

The different treatment option have already helped many affected individuals.

Treatment may start without any waiting period. It will be covered by health insurance and conducted by specially trained psychotherapists. In the long run we would like to ensure that there is efficient treatment for people suffering from Prolonged Grief Disorder.

Our offer contains:

• Detailed preliminary examination
• Treatment according to one of the two programs, with 20 weekly individual sessions
• Follow-up examination directly after end of treatment and 6 months after treatment has ended

Eligibility

You should consider treatment if:

• A close friend or family member has died
• Duration since loss is at least 6 months
• You are suffering from physiological or mental distress since the loss, or you have difficulties to master everyday tasks or activities
• While in treatment at our facility, you do not make use of other treatment. This does not include participation in support groups
• Minimum age 18 years

Together with you we will consider whether our offer is the most suitable treatment for you.

 

Contact

For further information please contact:

Octavia Harrison, M.Sc.
Email: harrison@psych.uni-frankfurt.de
Tel.: 069/798-23973