Newsletters & Articles

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From the Desk of Rev. Richard Jakubik
Tuesday, March 01, 2016 by Rev. Richard Jakubik

Facing suicide with Faith

“Nothing seems to matter anymore since my loved-one took his life,” said a client in a past therapy session.  “My job feels empty, my connection to family is shaken, and any past sense of well-being has been shattered.”   “I’ve lost my sense of purpose and I’m drifting away from everything and everyone that used to anchor me.” This survivor of suicide is going through what has been defined by psychotherapists as complicated or deep grief.  Losing someone you love to suicide cuts into your heart and forever redefines you and the world you live in.   Though not all survivors grieve the same way or for the same length of time, it is still essential that a survivor comes to terms with the loss and finds inner healing in their life.

Visions of Those We’ve Lost
Tuesday, March 01, 2016 by Cynthia Waderlow MSE, LCSW

Writing this month, I am drawing from my personal experience with grief.  The grief experiences of some teens and adults that have been shared with me in counseling sessions have often been intimate and vivid, and I sometimes take what others have shared and use them to examine my own response to loss.  I observe in others and notice in myself that a visceral, experiential memory of the deceased person may be an automatic grief response that applies to almost every age of survivor.   How might we otherwise explain these intense moments that seem to capture us and stop time?  Perhaps this is one way we attempt to compensate for a loss, to repair an intolerable breach of attachment.