Dear Dr. Neimeyer, As a counselor with a good deal of experience in working with grief, I have been hired to present at a senior retirement community in my city. The audience will be potential patrons who are looking to move their widowed parents from their homes into a facility. The topic of the presentation …
Dear Dr. Neimeyer, It’s been 11 years since I buried my mom and dad and I’ve never been able to accept or deal with their deaths; and then in February I lost my final grandma, so there’s been some issues with family since, and I have left and never looked back; but I still haven’t …
Dear Dr. Neimeyer, My husband passed away in five years ago. It was right before our oldest son graduated from high school and our youngest son was eight. My oldest son graduated with a degree in electrical engineering last year. My oldest son, I believe bottled up everything; he won’t even talk to me or his …
Dear Dr. Neimeyer, I am working with a client whose husband died suddenly eleven days after the birth of their first child. That son is now just turning three and is asking incessantly, “where is my father?” The mother, nanny, etc., honor the question and respond that his father is in heaven. He is aware …
For therapists: explaining a parent’s death to children Read More »
Dear Dr. Neimeyer, As a director of a bereavement center myself, I am very concerned about a friend. Her mother died about 4 years ago. Her father died about 8 months ago. Then, her son, as far as we know, died of an accidental overdose about one month after her father. The truth is it …
Complicated Grief after multiple losses, now cut off from the world… Read More »
Dear Dr. Neimeyer, I am a marriage and family therapist with a 55 year old female client who is the only surviving member of her family Her mother died suddenly and unexpectedly last year and she’s given up all her many interests. She is full of anxiety and fear–seems agoraphobic–having panic attacks and hot flashes …
Dear Dr. Neimeyer, I was not permitted to grieve for my Dad when he passed over five years ago because of his wife. I asked her if I could pick the casket out with her and be involved in the planning of his funeral. She said no and went ahead with it. Dad and I were …
