Wait for me in the sky

After an introduction about death and mourning, this paper provides a review of existing psychological literature on loss and presents an original gestalt model for supporting people who suffer from grief. Developed over the last twenty years, this model is drown from the author’s personal and professional experiences with mourning and it consist of different phases: denial, acceptation, calling at chaffer, wrath, and sadness. Each of these phases is described and, citing some pieces of sessions, the emotions involving therapist and patient during the trip towards rebirthing are illustrated. Some attention is paid to bereavement in children, issue on whom generally adults often are in difficulty. As a conclusion, suggesting the need for increased sensibilization actions for professionals and communities, the paper affirms that a gestalt perspective on bereavement and grief can help to living better and quite enjoying their own experiences on the contact boundary.

Keywords: Mourning, death, working through grief, phases of bereavement, specific support in bereavement, bereavement in children

Bandín Carmen Vázquez, Aspettami in cielo. Il processo del lutto in psicoterapia della Gestalt in "QUADERNI DI GESTALT" 1/2011, pp 45-64, DOI: 10.3280/GEST2011-001005