PTSD and Grief: Mourning to Heal Trauma




Change You Choose show

Summary: PTSD, grief, mourning, healing and trauma all go together in the mix that is the pallette of colors in recovery from posttraumatic stress. I know in my own recovery grief was ever-present. Maybe you, like me, have experienced the feeling of the sudden urge to cry, an ache that follows you everywhere and the heavy feeling that settles over you and won't go away. During my healing process I had to grieve the loss of who I had been (a child I'd never been completely aware of), the loss of who I could have been, and the loss of over 25 years that were shrouded in PTSD darkness. It took a long time for those wounds to heal. I didn't have a real understanding of grief back then, nor did I know how important it was to mourn -- or even how to do that. How much do you know about grieving and mourning -- the difference between them and how to use them in recovery? In this episode of Changing Direction radio I spoke with Dr. Alan Wolfelt, an expert in grief and mourning. In our conversation we covered:  Why hope is essential in healing (plus how to borrow hope when you don't have it) The difference between grief and mourning, plus the role each plays in healing What it means to mourn, and how to do it well The benefits of transforming grief to mourning Fave quote: Reconciling [grief] isn't about closing but opening. MEET OUR EXPERT: Dr. Alan Wolfelt is the Founder/Director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition is the author of many books on healing grief, including Reframing PTSD as Trauma Grief.