Solution-Focused Brief Therapy With Grieving Eastern Orthodox Arabs
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get the recommended amount of uninterrupted sleep they need to protect their health ,” according to a report on “ The State of Sleep Health in America 2023 ,” by the American Sleep Apnea Association , bit . ly / 3MyDdu9 . Pop-culture movies and music have featured the prevalence of sleep disturbances and related issues , for example , in the lyrics of this Kid Cudi song , “ Pursuit of Happiness ( Nightmare )”:
Tell me what you know about them night terrors every night Five AM cold sweats , waking up to the sky Tell me what you know about dreams , dreams Tell me what you know about night terrors , nothin ’ You don ’ t really care about the trials of tomorrow Rather lay awake in the bed full of sorrow
( Source : LyricFind : bit . ly / 407Ipbo )
Expressing emotions
The absence felt due to the death of a loved one can leave an emptiness in the life of the bereaved that results in an additional loss of goals , values , or identity . Many grieving individuals feel guilty for moving on with their life , and the loss of a loved one becomes harder to accept when the relationship was close , intimate , and personal , according to a 2019 article by Angela Mathews , PhD , in Methodological Innovations .
The grieving process helps to encourage the bereaved to develop different ways to regulate their emotions following the death of a loved one . In Arab cultures , it is accepted for women to verbally express emotions through sadness , wailing , and keening , while men are expected to control their emotions and maintain their grief quietly .
Western ideals
The myriad different cultural norms and practices around grief influence the way people react to loss . LCMHCs must be aware of which approaches to healing from grief that they recommend to families or individuals are most likely congruent with Western cultural concepts . This is especially important for grief work with clients from cultures that have responses to grief that value staying close with family and practicing religious and cultural traditions .
For example , in Western countries , camp-based interventions for individuals experiencing traumatic grief in addition to post-traumatic stress disorder ( PTSD ) symptoms have been found to be beneficial in terms of healing . Bereavement camps are not , however , a common choice for Middle Eastern families or those with grieving children . In Middle Eastern culture , largely because the culture is collectivistic , many caregivers prefer to keep grieving children around the family . In addition , some Arabs believe children should not participate in grieving processes such as funeral processions , and they discourage children from asking questions about death .
Journaling
Journaling is a tool that can be beneficial in aiding bereaved individuals with identifying their feelings , allowing them a safe place to express what they may feel is too shameful to say . Journaling helps with conveying feelings that might be difficult to talk about , as Dr . Mathews expressed in her Methodological Innovations article . In “ Writing Through Grief : Using Autoethnography to Help Process Grief After the Death of a Loved One ,” she recounts how she lost her interest in completing her PhD dissertation following the death of her son . Then a grief counselor challenged her by asking , “ Why not use a combination of methods , blend autobiography and phenomenology ? Write about the phenomenon of grief and your experiences with it .” Matthews discovered that , “ Writing about my pain helped me stick with it and finish the dissertation , but more importantly , writing about the agony of losing my son helped me survive his loss .”
Daily journaling has been shown to assist with understanding grief while providing an outlet for expression . The Methodological Innovations article further showed writing as a way to overcome the physical complications that come from suppressed grief and trauma .
Self-care
We all know that healthy self-care can boost physical and mental health ; this is especially true while experiencing grief and loss . LCMHCs should be aware that Arab Americans tend to abandon self-care practices when dealing with the loss of a loved one because their focus is likely to be on other family members , the community , funeral services , and other cultural events that take place during the funeral . Also , self-care methods and counseling are already stigmatized within the Arab American community , which causes members of the community to face barriers to coping with grief and loss — and to seeking support from mental health clinicians .
Those of us who are not members of the same culture as a grieving client do not always understand or appreciate the ways that individuals in that culture mourn , as a 2020 article on loss and grief among Black Americans confirms , pubmed . ncbi . nlm . nih . gov / 32048548 . Therefore , it ’ s especially important that LCMHCs listen to clients ’ accounts of the impact that a death has on their family , and draw out the clients ’ feelings instead of presuming they know what they are . continued on page 23
22 The Advocate Magazine 2023 , Issue # 1 American Mental Health Counselors Association ( AMHCA ) www . amhca . org