Dr Monika Wieliczko: Welcome to a guide to After Life, your go-to podcast for the young and widowed.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: This is your weekly space to help you live through grief.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I'm your loss, doctor Monica Velichko, psychologist and your fellow widow.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I'm bringing psychological skills to boost your resilience and help you make room for life while you grieve.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Listen in to insightful conversations with grief experts and those touched by a profound loss.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Together, we challenge the way people think about grief, offering hope of life after loss.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Expect honest stories of loss and creative ways to overcome grief challenges.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: We tackle common widowhood issues such as relationships, parenting, dating, and social isolation.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Each episode gives you access to handpicked resources and tips on difficult emotions, upsetting symptoms, where to seek support, and how to help children grieve.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Join the conversation and become a part of the grief evolution.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Today with me is Doctor Katja Windheim, a clinical psychologist.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: She worked in the NHS for many years and she left in 2021 to set up her private practice in South London where she works with adults struggling with emotional difficulties.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: She has a special interest in trauma and EMDR therapy.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It is a form of talking therapy that helps processing trauma.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: She is also about to launch another branch of her practice called the money psychologist which is about helping people to understand the psychology behind the relationship with money.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Katja has seen many people who struggle with grief and whose grief might become stuck or take over their lives.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: She has also worked with people who have experienced traumatic losses.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So welcome, Katja.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I'm really happy to have you here on the pod with me today.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Hi, Monika.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And it's a privilege to be here today and chat to you.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yes.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: There's a lot to talk about.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And one of the reasons why I was really looking forward to talking to you today is because of our shared interest in trauma and loss and grief and how these things are often interlinked.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And we often talked about how there could be different ways people respond to loss and grief.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I suppose my first question to you is how can we differentiate between healthy response to grief, the one that develops over a period of time into an adaptive response to grief, and the form of grief that requires some professional loss?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So how could we distinguish those two things?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: What are your thoughts about that?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Obviously speaking from the position of a psychologist who works with people with grief.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yeah.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So I think the first thing to bear in mind is that grief can look very different for each individual person.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I think your own grief response will be very individual to you and also to the type of loss and how the loss happened.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Mhmm.\
Dr Katja Windheim: We do have a few I'm not sure whether young, agree, Monica, but we have a few sort of general indicators of what often happens if you lose somebody.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You know?\
Dr Katja Windheim: So I think, especially life it's somebody close, it can really turn your world upside down.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It can slow you into turbulence, life you're disorientated, in shock, it can feel almost like a part of you has been cut.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Can be very overwhelming.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It can manifest itself physically in the body, in that you might feel that you're not able to get up in the Monika.\
Dr Katja Windheim: All you want to do is lie in bed.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It can be life a physical collapse.\
Dr Katja Windheim: There might be an intense sense of longing for the person you have lost.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I think that can be, tense sadness, crying, other turbulent emotions, guilt, blaming yourself, maybe regrets.\
Dr Katja Windheim: There can be numbness.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Sometimes people feel very cut off from the world, from themselves.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Thoughts about the person can dominate your whole day.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It might almost feel like you are living in an alternate reality.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Some somehow this is a movie.\
Dr Katja Windheim: This isn't real.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I think sometimes people just don't even feel they grieve.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Sometimes people feel very cut off.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's almost like it hasn't happened.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I'm just carrying on.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Everybody's expecting them to show a response, but, actually, they're not reading anything.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So I think it can be very different depending on each person, but it can be very profound and turbulent.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I think that the difference then to griefs that become stuck or that becomes problematic is that these symptoms should start changing over time.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It should dominate their life a little bit less.\
Dr Katja Windheim: They should start to feel able to reengage this life.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Other things should suddenly start maturing again.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Often what happens is that the relationship to the person they have lost changes.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So so often people find that with time, they are able to accept that the loss has happened.\
Dr Katja Windheim: This has actually happened to me.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's not just a movie.\
Dr Katja Windheim: This has actually taken place, which may take some time.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And then, you know, they might start talking about the person, linking these memories, sometimes also positive memories, relationship changes, and that it becomes much more about instead of a real life physical relationship with a person, it becomes more relationship with person is retained in their own Monika more symbolic representation.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You might start start talking about the person in the past tense, you know, which is a big step.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And they, you know, often they experience, also a period of growth after having lost somebody that actually, you know, sometimes it also involves reinventing yourself, maybe changing parts of your identity, and just sort of gradually.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's not about leaving the person behind or moving on from your feelings, but I think it's about engaging in life despite what has happened.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I think that sounds really interesting what you're saying.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: A couple of things I picked up on that, seem particularly important is that there is no pattern or right or wrong way to grieve that everyone's individual as you're saying.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And there might be very extreme reactions that might not necessarily be in line with what other people might be or the society might be expecting someone to do or feel or the way they act.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: You know, on the one hand, you describe this state of being completely overwhelmed by feelings of sadness and distress, and then on the other, the sense that actually someone can't feel my we would describe it as a state of shock.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: When something overwhelming happens to us, we often stop ourselves from feeling.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It's a defense against something that we fear we might not be able to deal with.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And that kind of shock response is like a I after think of it as life a protective cushion, something that stops us from becoming too overwhelmed.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And gradually, you know, what what follows through that, you said, is that process of adapting to the new environment and and and absorbing the information because it's almost like our brain cannot function, cannot focus on what happened.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I very much can relate to my own experiences of loss with my partner and how it took a long time for my brain to start functioning again.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So it's a cognitive biologically, it's a cognitive process the way our brain functions, but also psychological and and behavioral.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So certain things are impossible, life, for example, planning or remembering things, what you do or supposed to do or how you're supposed to do certain things.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So it's a it's a quite a disruptive state initially.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And then what you're saying is that that state should progress into something slightly different.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So you described, I think, that the symptoms become a bit less intense.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Is that what you're saying?\
Dr Katja Windheim: Or they dominate your life a little bit loss.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So there's Yeah.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Space, or where, for example, you might have felt very cut off from everybody.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Suddenly, you you start experiencing the need to reconnect maybe to other start socializing a bit more, going out a bit more.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Sometimes it can even be almost like you're joining the deceased because you feel dead to yourself, and then you become alive very slowly.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You realize, actually, I haven't died.\
Dr Katja Windheim: My own life still going on, and I can start reengaging in it.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Mhmm.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Is what we would normally be looking out for, that kind of relational change, yet how you relate to your own grief that that should progress.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So, like, in any other relationship, just because someone dies doesn't doesn't mean that we suddenly freeze that relationship in life, and that person is still alive in our mind.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: You kind of normally progress with the way you think about them or how you feel about them.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I think what you're saying is that that is a really important element in the grief journey to allow that process to take place naturally.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But you're also saying that well, we know that that doesn't happen every life.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: That some some some people get a bit stuck.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Exactly.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And and you've seen that presumably, you've seen that a lot in your private work.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yes.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And so it might be that, and it's very difficult because, of course, we have, diagnostic manuals.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Mhmm.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Sudden Breathe is now a, medical condition as well Yes.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Which features in the diagnostic manuals, here in Europe and also in the States.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So if you go to your doctor with a stuck grief reaction, they might assess certain symptoms, and then you might even get a label of a grief disorder, which then, means you might be put forward for treatment.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's quite interesting, and this is one of the criticisms of these manuals that, the life scale varies.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So here in Europe, we can be diagnosed with this disorder after 6 Monika, and in the states, only after 12 months.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I'm personally not a big fan of labeling, this type of reaction as a disorder and categorizing it in this way, but I would just say, you know, putting it out.\
Dr Katja Windheim: How do you put a life scale on it?\
Dr Katja Windheim: And something else that we haven't mentioned that we might want to talk about as well is social and cultural norms, which might vary between, cultures in terms of how long the grief response goes on and it's very intense.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And so I would always say if you feel you've been struggling, at what point do you seek help?\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's a different question to at what point does it become stuck.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I would say it's really, in a way, up to each person to make that judgment that actually I've been living like this for a long time.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's taken over my life.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I'm really struggling with this, and it's not shifting.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And maybe this is the point at which you would think about it as kind of stuck or really dominating.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And this might be one of the points in the journey at which you seek help.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yes.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So what you're saying is that it's a very personal take on, you know, when do we feel this stuck with our grief, but also that sense of knowing yourself and knowing perhaps how you're how you're functioning in a day to day basis because it is part of grief that you feel stuck.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: You know, I very much can relate to that myself.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: You know, you can't move on with your life.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: There is a period of intense struggles with life, and I think that is a normal response to grief, to struggle with it.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: If we don't struggle, there's a chance that we might be we're not really in touch with that grief, and it could be maybe experienced at the later stage in our life when something is kind of almost, like, blocked that that experience of sadness or loss.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But but I think in general, people people are going through that period of life, but but how long does it last, and at which point do you feel like it's affecting you is is a really important question, and it's it's not like we're having any very definite answer, to when.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But I think you're saying when you feel like you're struggling and you can't cope and you feel like you maybe don't have the support in place that you should in form of friendship groups, social support that could be available to you to help you process your loss, that would be another indicator that perhaps there's a need for something to be processed.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Because we we can do that processing in many different ways and doesn't necessarily have to be in the therapist office.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It could be through many different means.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It's about the process and is this process taking place or is it a bit stalled?\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I think, you know, for some people, they might be very, overwhelmed, and things might be very difficult for, say, 2 years.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And but they might feel, actually, I still need this space, and I still need this time.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And at the moment, I feel, yes, I might be able to shift this eventually, but not right now.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I think that's also okay.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Mhmm.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So it's I think it's at this moment when we life that something else we're missing out on something else or something else is life family members who are still alive, especially if we have children or can't return to work after a long break or something else is suffering or so our social life is suffering, then I think it's the sign that perhaps this is not known.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Because I think I think the point I'm trying to make is that sometimes we can overmedicalize grief by saying, well, everything is disorder.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: You should get back to work after 6 months or after a year.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: You know, you've got that that period of life, and after that, you get labeled with a disordered grief.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But I think the other end of the spectrum is when we accept that everything that happens is just part of grief and almost, like, send this message to the society, which overly normalizes grief and sometimes might prevent people from actually asking for help when they need it because not every symptom that we experience is an adaptive response to grief, and some of them can be quite problematic, especially when people stop looking after themselves and there is a risk of malnutrition or not being able to function over a longer period of time and not being able to get out of bed for for a very prolonged periods of life.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And, obviously, you've heard about people who never return to the world of living and and to remain in grief for years years, and I and I think that's the point at which I think something needs to happen and something needs to be taken a bit more seriously.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But thinking about therapy in particularly, I'm just thinking, you know, about any particular circumstances that would suggest that someone definitely needs that help after people who've lost their life partner.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Actually, that extends to any other form of loss, significant loss.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But what are the particular circumstances that would suggest that someone might need more professional help after losing a life partner?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So or that could extend to any other form of loss, really.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But those kind of red flags, if we were to kind of put it back, what would our listeners be looking out for?\
Dr Katja Windheim: I mean, it might be quite useful if we do look at the diagnostic manual at this point because I think there are some of the symptoms listed there.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I think they're definitely very useful to think about in terms of red flags.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's just, I think, how we then think about this in terms of is it a disorder and how long the length of time that we can probably be a little bit more flexible on.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But they list things like, you know, an intense longing and yearning for the person you've lost and a preoccupation.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So young thinking is dominated by thoughts about the person, memories about the person, and you're not living in the here and now.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's more like you're living in the past or you're living in a world where this person is still around.\
Dr Katja Windheim: If this then goes on for a long time and continues to dominate your thinking every day, and other symptoms or red flags might be a feeling as though part of oneself has died, or you have died completely, or, you know, that you can't accept person has died.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So you feel life, no, they haven't actually died.\
Dr Katja Windheim: They're still here.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So young might be seeing when you're walking down the street, you might see the person, you might mistake others for the person very frequent.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Or, like, you avoid reminders, so you clear your whole house.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You're not dealing with it.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You're not thinking about it.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You feel very numb.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You don't want anybody to talk about the person, and you block out all memories from the past.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Or a lot of intense emotional pain on a daily basis, very intense sadness, lots of crying.\
Dr Katja Windheim: There might be intense guilt.\
Dr Katja Windheim: There might be intense self blame.\
Dr Katja Windheim: There might be intense anxiety, shame maybe about something that you did, can't let go of that, or feeling that life is completely meaningless.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yeah.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You're very hopeless about the future or very intense loneliness.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You can't relate to anybody.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You can't reconnect anybody.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I think an indication that these become problematic life it keeps dominating your life, if it impairs your everyday functioning.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So you can't work, you can't socialize.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Life there's children, you feel you can't look after them properly, and any other kind of functional impairment, probably an indication that this is now a bit more than you should expect.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And maybe now is definitely a point at which you should seek help or you should talk to somebody about this.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yes.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: That's a really good point.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I also thought that, you know, sometimes it could be that we engage in certain activities, but they are done almost life in a mechanical way without being fully present, which means that we just do the very basic, what is expected of us, but not really live a life.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It's kind of more like a survival state that continues, and it's not really living.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It's surviving every day, which I think what you're saying is obviously about the quality of our life.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And if we feel that our loss and grief is affecting significantly the way we live and we struggle to thrive in life after a significant amount of time, there might be something that I think as you're saying is maybe blocking something about the loss that hasn't been processed or dealt with that is kind of need our attention.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And and I think that that doesn't necessarily mean you have to be really struggling with things to be looking for, to talk to a therapist loss psychologist or a counselor or attend a group.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But I think it's just to say that that there are obviously ways how this could be helped, this process.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It doesn't have to be done on your own.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I think it's actually quite counterintuitive to be grieving on your own.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It needs to be done in a context of social outside world and in a social context.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Which is often, you know, the norm in many cultures, I think.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's a lot more communal grieving.\
Dr Katja Windheim: A lot more expressed emotions and it's crying in public.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yeah.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yeah.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yeah.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I think there's something about this being witnessed by others rather than than just being the internal struggle.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I think it makes loss like an introduction of your grief to the outside world, which is so healing and so important.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yeah.\
Dr Katja Windheim: That's containment by the community.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I think some of what we see in a healthy grieving process, For example, if a family have lost a member, the family would talk a lot about the person they have lost.\
Dr Katja Windheim: They might look at photo albums.\
Dr Katja Windheim: They might think about memories.\
Dr Katja Windheim: They might even talk about, oh, remember when this person was so annoying.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So you might not talk about just the positive traits, but also the negative traits, and all of this then becomes integrated.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And your collective way of making sense of the loss, it's a lot easier, as you say, than doing this completely on your own.\
Dr Katja Windheim: In the early stages, it's definitely important to engage with family, talk about memories, look at photos, and maybe, engage in in groups.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You know, there's a lot of support groups for different types of losses where people just have a space.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Also, to connect with people who are going through a similar experience can be very helpful.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yes.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I mean, they're often from my experience of working with groups, especially with grievers, there's there is often this sense of wanting to be amongst people who've experienced similar type of loss because because that often feels like that's something that only someone who's experienced that form of loss can understand, which is kind of, I suppose, a bit controversial in some ways because we don't necessarily agree that we can only understand what the other person experience if we experience it ourselves.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But I think it does mean that certain things don't have to be communicated, I think, because they're kind of understood by the other person in a very kind of most nonverbal way.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Like, this is just a felt sense of a shared experience in some ways.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Though, as you mentioned earlier, every loss is different and it doesn't mean everyone has to have the same response.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But thinking about the therapy which kind of leads me on to my next question which is about what does therapy for grief look life, and what can we expect from it?\
Dr Katja Windheim: So I think there's different types of therapy, which I use for grief.\
Dr Katja Windheim: As we said at the beginning, it might just be about having a space.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Actually, I don't want to do this journey on my own.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I want to have a space from the beginning.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And sometimes you might choose to see a counselor who have a slightly different training from us as psychologists, because the interventions they offer is a bit less structured.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's about offering a space and, and sort of validating and being alongside you in your grieving journey.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It might just be about going somewhere and talking about what's happening for you, and the person is more listening to you in a supportive way.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I think you, Monica, have some information also on your website about the different types of therapists and different types of therapies.\
Dr Katja Windheim: People want to have more information.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And then later, if you feel you're dealing with, slightly more stuck grief or grief that dominates your life and that you find very difficult to deal with on your own and you're struggling with on a daily basis and that impairs your functioning, thinking about exploring what has actually happened to young, how has your grief journey looked to date, what are your coping mechanisms, and might some of these ways of coping, for example, numbing things out and pushing them away, is that maybe why things feel stuck or why things dominate your life so much.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So young would be exploring the blocks, and it would be about helping you to remove blocks in order to then kick start the normal grieving journey, the normal healing journey again.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So it would be more about anything that interrupts the flow.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Can we think about this and can we get things moving again?\
Dr Katja Windheim: So you can move through the journey in a in a healthier way.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So you're saying that it's it's kind of about identifying the bits that we struggle with.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I I kind of want to say something about that.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I think we often think of grief as of something happened to us in a very kind of isolated way as if, you know, we're just talking about grief.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But we obviously when something traumatic happens in our lives, we tend to respond to those events in a way that feels most familiar to us, which is usually how we responded to things in the past or, you know and I think that I mean, in in our language, I often say we we kind of regress.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: We kind of developmentally, we kind of go into our previous stages of development where we're not as well equipped.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It's just, you know, how we generally deal with difficult things.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I think that is also something that I think is important to acknowledge that it's often when things get stuck, life there's a reason that could be beyond our grief.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I don't know how you would work with that, but maybe you've got some ideas there.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I think often that gets a bit lost and people often think, oh, I'm just coming for my to address my grief, my loss, And it turns out to be more than that.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I think that's important to acknowledge.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So often what we might do in therapy, depending on the therapy, because there are some therapies which are a lot more focused on the present.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So there is, mindful approaches to dealing with grief, which, more about the how you deal with your responses in the present, and you might be applying some principles from Eastern philosophy and Buddhism to what's going on for you in the moment.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But other therapies life the EMDR, the more trauma focused therapy that I do, psychotherapy, for example, psychodynamic therapy, you will be looking much more at, okay, are there any things from your past, your childhood that might be feeding into how you're responding in the here and now?\
Dr Katja Windheim: This reaction in the bowman seems to be a bit bigger than we would expect, which often indicates that something else is feeding into it.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But, again, this is very individual, and you would use the therapeutic space to explore this together with your therapist.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And what we also know from research is that, for example, if somebody had a lot of loss in their life or they had very early loss, so you might have lost a parent as a child, for example, or you had multiple losses over many years that this compound grieving response Accumulate.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Another death.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yeah.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Cumulate.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Almost life at some point, you just can't take anymore, and you burn out.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And maybe there is something about previous losses that hasn't been processed and that you loss at together with the therapist because it's too much for you on your own.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yeah.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So it could be losses, but not necessarily family system breaks down.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And one of the parents, not necessarily dies, but is not not available.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: There could be other traumatic experience of something that's been difficult, haven't been dealt with, and then suddenly we, as adults, experience another loss, especially at death of a life partner is a significant loss because it affects every aspect of your life.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So we're not just talking about, I mean, not to diminish any other form of loss, but there are certain type of losses that affect us profoundly, but they don't change our day to day functioning.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But when you lose someone young rely on on a day to day basis, for example, and you've got a family together and and then they life, then there is the financial, social, private, like more personal day to day functioning.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Every aspect of your life is affected and it's usually seen as one of the most traumatic losses and anyone can have, some also losing a child.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So I think that as you're saying, it's it's so complicated.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: There's so many different things to think about and so many things to explore.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And it's never just about loss.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I mean, when things get complicated, I think that my mind immediately loss to what else are we dealing with?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Where is this pattern coming from?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I think you're saying that therapy, especially, maybe not necessarily counseling, is a supportive space to to someone to witness it, but the therapeutic with the psychologist or psychotherapist, you would be looking into exploring these things, which, as you're saying, can potentially help us grow better ways of coping with loss because obstacles or those kind of weak points, if you life, for example, you know, there could be there's something that is particularly prominent in our mind.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: We need to be looking at the reasons why, where that comes from and how that developed and, how can we be supported in dealing with that.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And obviously, you work with EMDR, but it could be other forms of therapeutic approaches that would deal with that.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: You kind of work much more with the body.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I mean EMDR focuses on working with the body and the mind, which is a really important element in grief, for example, because our body is affect it quite significantly when we grieve.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: A lot of symptoms and emotions can be displayed through our bodies.\
Dr Katja Windheim: One other thing to mention, which might be important here, which is often, not thought about as much, is what you mentioned earlier about, when somebody feels very numb and, or just continues functioning as if nothing happens or just pushes the grief to the life.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And then you said, sometimes it comes out later in life.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I certainly a lot of clients who come to me and they say they've been absolutely life.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And then all of a sudden, something happens in their life, and they're kind of breaking down and not functioning very emotional.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Sometimes they can directly relate it to a loss.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Suddenly their dad died when they were 25.\
Dr Katja Windheim: They've been absolutely fine.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Now they're 65.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Something happened.\
Dr Katja Windheim: They suddenly can't stop crying about their dad.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's also that something happened, like, for example, they retire, or the child moves out of home and goes to university, and suddenly they're feeling sad, and they're crying all the life, and they can't make sense of what's happened.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yes.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Sometimes I think we don't process a loss because we find it very difficult to think about it, so we push it aside.\
Dr Katja Windheim: We don't deal with the feelings.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But sometimes, when another event happens where there is some kind of loss of some form, the previous loss can be triggered because it's locked away, and it's then impossible to keep it locked away.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And suddenly, you're being flooded by difficult emotions.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So sometimes if that happens, it might be linked to previous loss that hasn't been processed.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So that's all something to bear in mind.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yeah.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It just makes me think how complicated it is, and we often think of it life, oh, grief is a normal thing that happens to people.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But, actually, when, as we're saying, when things get complicated, they they there's really reason why that is.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And the longer we leave things to be unaddressed my kind of clinical experience is often that when we actually get to the point of addressing it, we we we're having to deal with often years years of unprocessed grief that then gets buried deeply inside us.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And then getting into that after years, it's much more difficult than addressing it early on when it was not well, when it was still fresh and easily accessible because we build those defenses, don't we, to to hide our feelings and hide the trauma.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And breaking through those defenses sometimes takes a long time and is generally may have negative impact on our functioning.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So there's something really important about not necessary to seek therapy, but to be in touch with what's going on inside us.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And if we've never developed those skills early on in life, then suddenly when something traumatic takes place in our lives, we don't know what to do with it.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And we just either deny it or push it away, and and then it comes back in those uglier ways years after.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Which also makes me think about palliative care, for example.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So you know young are going to experience a loss, and it's inevitable that it might even be a good idea to seek some support prior to the loss, you know, when you're already starting to, get support.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Hospice often offer a space counseling to help you start\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yeah.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I mean, that was very much my experience of loss of my partner where I was in very intense psychoanalytical therapy, psychoanalysis, which is 5 times a week, and that was years before even my late husband was diagnosed with cancer.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But that really helped with containing and preparing and working through the loss.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I think in many ways made the experience of loss afterwards, I think, a bit easier in some ways because all the anticipation of loss is quite different to sudden loss again.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And it's not to say which one is after, more difficult, or I don't think we can even talk about that in this way.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But I think having that preparation for loss and having space to process it as it comes out was incredibly valuable and helped me, I think, in some ways collect myself better.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But I think what you're saying is that we don't even often think about these things when we're in crisis, when something like this happens.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I think it's hard to be thinking about our needs and our, especially if we care as to people who are very unwell.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But my next question, I suppose, is about knowing who to approach when we're seeking that support.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And there are obviously you mentioned that earlier a bit that we've got counselors, therapists, psychologists, individual group.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: There are all sorts of places to to go to.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And what would you advise?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: What would you say to people who are struggling with the loss of a life partner?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Where should they go?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Who should they contact?\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yeah.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So I think, in the early stages, if it's just about having a bit of space, definitely a counselor might be a good point of loss.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Something like person centered counseling, for example, Can also depends on how deep you want to go.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You know, you could start seeing a psychotherapist life you did, Monica, because I think, that helps go a bit deeper, or psychologist.\
Dr Katja Windheim: If grief gets more complicated, I would say young definitely need to see somebody who provides, slightly deeper going interventions.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I would look for a psychologist or a psychotherapist who specializes in grief.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But I would always, regardless of which professional, definitely make sure that they're accredited.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So, again, Monica has information on her web page about this, but there are certain bodies in the UK who regulate health professionals and accredit health professionals.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And it's, as a professional working with clients, it's a good idea to have an accrediting body because that can can provide insurance to people seeking help Yeah.\
Dr Katja Windheim: That this person has passed relevant criteria and is qualified to offer what they're telling you that they're doing so that they have relevant qualifications.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And we have quite a big issue with that in the UK, but I think it's across really Europe and and US.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: The the same problem across the world, really, that we're not very well regulated in mental health as a mental health professionals.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I mean, it's a bit easier with clinical psychologists because we've been employed mostly by NHS, so there are governing bodies like HCPC.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yeah.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I think the clinical psychologist is one of the protected title.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So if you want to call yourself clinical psychologist, you young are being regulated by young body.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But I think the title of psychologist and the title of psychotherapist are not regulated in the UK.\
Dr Katja Windheim: There are in some other countries life Australia.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Psychologist is also, a protected title.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So you can only call yourself psychologist life you have passed certain, qualifications and if you're regulated by a body, but that's not the case here.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yes.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Clinical psychologist is, but psychologist isn't.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So very important to look out for whether this first is accredited.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It has signed up to young regulating bodies.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yes.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yes.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And as you mentioned, there will be blog post shared at the bottom of the page where you can read and find out how to check if someone's regulated.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Because my experience of looking at how the grief helping profession world, how it works, I often see people who have had some lived experience of grief, which is incredibly important, I think, in understanding what grief is about, but often very limited professional experience or qualifications to do it.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I mean, you can see them often coming up as grief educators, which are people who've had some brief counseling training for a few days and then kind of call themselves grief specialists.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: My alarm bells go off immediately when I see this coaching.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yeah.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yes.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Group coaching, which is you know, it can be very helpful to some, but if we're talking about complicated grief when things are actually can be very, very difficult to address.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I'm just worried that we're talking about processing trauma in a group setting where we're not having any qualifications, you know, just to compare it to some of the trainings that takes 4 to 6 to 8 years on average for most of professionals in our field.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And you've got someone with a few days of experience training, running big groups of coaching programs, I just don't know how they do it to start with, but I also question how safe it is, especially life someone's very distressed or dysregulated.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: How are we gonna address that?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So I think if you just need some social support life a peer support group, that could be a really good option.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It might be cheaper.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It might be just about understanding, gaining some knowledge and some exercises to practice at home, but if we're talking about something more complex, I think there's a line that we need to draw what is suitable for people who are actually having more complex difficulties.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And then we also obviously have the range of groups that could be peer support groups.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I think it could also be quite helpful, especially at the initial stage when you just want to normalize your responses to grief, and they're often run by other grivers and that's, you know, as long as they are they do what they're supposed to do, I think, and if they're, supervised by someone more experienced and there's someone overseeing that, that's usually a good good idea.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But there has to be some kind of system in place that makes it safe.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And there could be more therapeutic groups, which, again, they could be run by therapists or psychologists, and they definitely have to have training and experience in working with groups because that's that that is something.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: This is a therapeutic therapy process, and it has to be supervised.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It has to be well thought about.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So we're not just talking about peer support.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: We're talking about therapeutic process, and you have to have qualifications to run that.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I think sometimes people feel reluctant to join a group.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But when we were Monica and I used to work together in the NHS, And We could do things.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Were, yeah, in our, service, people seek therapy often were very keen on the individual space.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I think the individual space can be nice and powerful, and sometimes you need to have that space to have really have somebody disentangle what's going on for them.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But we were also running a lot of groups, and we found that although people often needed persuading to join the groups, sometimes it's something very powerful being in Yes.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You know, that can't take place just between you and a therapist.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yeah.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So I would not discount the experience of group therapy.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I think sometimes it can be very and as opposed to self help groups, and we're talking about structured, therapy groups such, I think, Monica, you are offering some of those, and I would discount that experience because there's something very powerful about the group Yes.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Challenging each and working together and the dynamics and the processes that can that can shift things sometimes quicker and sometimes in more powerful ways.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I completely agree with you, and there are things that people can offer to each other that is invaluable and something that would never happen in an individual therapy because you just can't relate to as a therapist to a client in the same way as another group member can to you.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It's a wonderful experience, I think, in many ways.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So, yes, you're absolutely right, and and there are many organizations that offer that form of support, and and I think it becomes a bit more normalized, I suppose.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It's a community, it's a form of healing through joining a therapeutic community, which I think in grief is invaluable because we live in a society that is completely unable to deal with loss, deal with death.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So you need to be amongst people who can deal with it, who can acknowledge the loss.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I think that is one of the best ways to do that through some form of therapeutic group.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But thinking about what's preventing people from seeking therapy, you mentioned, obviously, sometimes people feeling a bit anxious about joining groups, and then maybe you were kind of going towards that already there.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But what from your experience, what's stopping people from seeking therapy as opposed to maybe coaching or some form of developmental programs?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: What do you think that is?\
Dr Katja Windheim: I think it's much more acceptable nowadays that people have therapy and seek help in this way.\
Dr Katja Windheim: There's a lot of TV programs now on therapy.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Quite fashionable Yeah.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: In the states, especially.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I think in the states, everybody has their therapist.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So yes.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But, I think here, there can still be stigma associated with it.\
Dr Katja Windheim: You know?\
Dr Katja Windheim: I should be dealing with this on my own.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It makes me seem like an in insane person or crazy person.\
Dr Katja Windheim: If I'm seeking help, it means I'm weak.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So I think there can be shame Mhmm.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Relation to help seeking.\
Dr Katja Windheim: There can be, of course, cost factors, you know, because I think when you seek help on the NHS, of course, you have to speak to your GP so there is more hurdles to overcome.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And when you see somebody privately, it's just this transaction between you and a private therapist, but this depends on cost.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So I think cost and these kind of bureaucratic hurdles can sometimes get in the way.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Mhmm.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But I would still encourage people to, you know, not feel ashamed and and speak to their GP.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Mhmm.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I don't know what you think about that, but I think we kind of are partially to be blamed for it in our profession because we are not the most, what to say, engaging in terms of explicit about what we do.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I think it's almost like people don't know what to expect from therapy and what would that be like.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And and I think we don't really talk about this.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: That is actually, I would say for me personally, someone who's had life analysis for many years, it takes a long time to get there, I suppose.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But but eventually, young realize that it really improves your quality of life.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And it's one of the best investment I've ever made in my whole life.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And it is not the cheapest investment, but it's definitely worth it, yes, if you go privately.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And but I think we are partially kind of it's almost like a this is a private our private thing.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: We do it, you know, for for the few, and there's something to be that we need to talk more about that actually therapy can be difficult, but also really rewarding and can improve our functioning.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And it's about understanding yourself better.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It's about having a space to talk about yourself.\
Dr Katja Windheim: If another mind, help you make sense of what's going on for you in a more neutral space.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And of course\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And grow your Monika, you know.\
Dr Katja Windheim: We'll bring our professional knowledge.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And I think it's always a relationship where we work together because I know about certain theories, but they might not work for everybody in the same way.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And this is where clients come in or people who come to see me.\
Dr Katja Windheim: They bring their own experience and know what works and what doesn't.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So it's truly a relationship where you work together, and every person brings their own set of expertise.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Mhmm.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And it's very rewarding to engage in.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yes.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And when you see yourself overcoming things that were always blocking young, and you're suddenly able to do things, achieve things that were impossible in the past to kind of realize what you've been missing out on your whole life.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And as much as if that can be difficult in itself to come to terms with the losses, you know, like in death but any other form of loss.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I think that's the main subject of any form of therapy, really.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: If we look deep inside it, it's always about losses in life.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yes.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I think kind of follows on from my final question, which is, you know, how possible it is to heal from this more complicated grief?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: When I say complicated Monika when things get really complicated in grief, how possible, how likely it is to overcome these problems of being stuck in grief?\
Dr Katja Windheim: Yeah.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So I think it's very possible.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Sometimes it's a profound life changing changes that can take place.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So I've definitely seen that because as soon as you explore with somebody what is stuck here and why is it stuck, sometimes you can remove those blocks and start the healing journey and thus sometimes change people's life in profound ways.\
Dr Katja Windheim: I have come across some people where it was much more difficult, who I've seen for sometimes longer periods of time where for some reason, it wasn't possible to remove the blocks.\
Dr Katja Windheim: It was very difficult to get unstuck, but even those people made some kind of gains or knew what they needed to accept or knew what they needed to do to look after themselves.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Even though, like, I'm thinking about one mother who had lost a child in very difficult circumstances, which I think sometimes is very, very difficult to consolidate, in terms of continuing to live your life.\
Dr Katja Windheim: Sometimes it can keep on dominating your everyday life to a significant degree.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But even this lady was then able to understand even though we can't shift some of this, these are the things she can do to look after herself in terms of her social circle, maybe engaging a bit more, maybe, letting people in a bit more, maybe start a bit of work, you know, and there is usually some movement.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Yes.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And sometimes we see that those shifts take place after therapy ends because that therapeutic process continues.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And, you know, those changes can really take place after well, when you're no longer seeing a therapist or psychologist, and then young you actually notice that the year after, actually, you start to put those things you've learned and processed into practice or certain things that become possible, and your quality of life is improving.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And it is really ultimately about having more meaningful life, and that's what therapy can help me with the most.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And sometimes, I find that somebody might come into therapy and we are not able to shift things as much as we might have hoped the outset.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And then maybe this person continues their life journey, and maybe 5 years later something shifts in their life.\
Dr Katja Windheim: And then they go back into therapy, either with me or somebody else, and then they're able to make bigger shifts.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So sometimes it can be, you dip into therapy, you dip out, and then later young dip in and you're able to do a bit more.\
Dr Katja Windheim: So it doesn't have to be just a one off plan.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Mhmm.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Absolutely.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Well, I I do hope that this has installed some hope and curiosity in people listening to the podcast, especially about when to seek therapy, counselling, or any other form of support because it I feel like it just can so dramatically change the way we function and and deal with loss and gives us more space to live because ultimately, there's always this conflict in grief between can we live or should we grieve?\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I think, well, maybe the message underneath that that I'm very much trying to put across is that we can do both.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And in a way, the only way to mourn the loss is by living and incorporating the loss into your world of living.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And I really hope that by having those conversations with different psychologists and professionals, we can bring some of that awareness into the world and and encouraging people to look after themselves and find resources to cope better.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So I've also created a couple of resources that could be useful to people.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: 1 is a Grief MOT, which is a little questionnaire that anyone can sign up to online by going to my website and clicking on grief MOT.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: That would give you some indication of where you are in your grief journey, but also to give you some indication how to seek help or things you can do day to day to help with your grief, how to stimulate that breathing process.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: And there are also some resources to help you generally to define some ways of thinking about noticing the symptoms of grief and how you can address that.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So if you go to my website, guide to afterlife.com, there is a section Monika the resources as well as the Grief MOT life, which you can follow and complete the questionnaire and get some personalized results that will tell you where you are in your grief journey and how to best support yourself on that.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: So I would encourage everyone who's now thinking about getting some support to to go there.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Well, it's been really good having you here, Katya, and I'm sure we'll have a chance to speak again about anything to do with grief and therapy and mourning and trauma and all sorts of things that could be really helpful for people to to know.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: But, thank you so much for today.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: It's been a real pleasure to to have you here.\
Dr Katja Windheim: But thank you very much for having me, and it's been a pleasure to, be on your podcast.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Thank you for listening in.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: I hope you found it useful.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Please stay in touch by subscribing to my podcast and leaving a review on your preferred platform to help other widows grieve and live.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Check out our show notes for links to helpful resources or go to guide to afterlife.com to find out more and take part in the grief MOT, your first aid course for grief.\
Dr Monika Wieliczko: Join us next Tuesday for yet another stimulating conversation.}
