12 Questions for a Grief Therapist

In the recently relaunched Jo’s cup Carrera columnWe ask people who share the big and small lessons they have learned at work.

Duel therapist, Natalie Greenberg, directs her own practice in Manhattan and works with students in the Center for Ministry of the NYU. She tells us what people do not realize pain and how strangers react to their work in dinners …

When did they attract you for the first time for therapy?
When I was a child, my father was an addict, and our family attended Al-Anon, a support group for families and friends of the addicts. Now he has been sober for 17 years, but I always understood that therapy was a resource for people during difficult times.

Did you always know that you would become therapist?
You are welcome. After graduating from the university with a communication title, I realized a family and took long to discover what I wanted to do next. During my free time, I configured phone calls with my friends ‘parents and interviewed them about their jobs, asking’ what was your title? How did you decide to do this? What are the pros and cons of your career? And this is how I learned about social work and how it has professional careers that are similar to psychology, but have more than one social justice lens.

How did you choose to specialize in pain?
At 22, I lost my mother for suicide. I had no idea how to process his death, and I didn’t know if I was allowed to talk about that with family and friends. Especially because suicide felt like a terrifying taboo theme. So, when it came to choosing a specialty of therapy, I sat and thought: “What is something that I feel especially equipped?” The pain came to me very fast.

How do strangers react at parties when they hear that you are a grieving therapist?
It is a fun fire test! People ask a million questions or change the subject immediately. People also say: “You’re going to psychoanalyze me!” And, of course, it is rooted in me to look for patterns. But at the same time, psychoanalyzing is workAnd I don’t want to work at a party.

What is the most challenging work you have had?
I worked in the psychiatric emergency room in Bellevue, the most occupied psychiatric hospital in the country. At first, the idea of ​​working there terrified me, but I learned a lot. During my second month, Hurricane Sandy flooded the hospital and I saw first hand how a hospital operates during a natural disaster. I also learned to work in a violent environment, since some patients would enter and intoxicated or psychotic and injure our staff. Going to therapy while working there was key to my own mental health.

You lost your mother at age 22. What advice would you give to young people who are afflicted?
Losing my mother so young was extremely insulating. None of my friends had gone through anything similar; They didn’t know how to appear, and I didn’t know how to communicate my needs. I ended up attending a duel group called Cena, an organization that houses dinners for young people who have lost family or friends. He also felt so well to speak with people of my age about the grieving process without stigma. I am obsessed with the organization and I consider them many of my clients.

Tell us about a work moment that you will always remember.
Once during a session, a patient was describing a loss, and I began to cry. Then, I was very insecure and I wondered if I had acted non -professional. My clinical supervisor assured me: ‘You are a therapist, but you are also a human and you are answering something really sad. What else could someone want to make your therapist human? That moment changed my idea of ​​how a therapist should appear in his patients and validate them. In the first days of psychoanalysis, therapists were mainly men who acted as a blank board. Those types of therapists still exist in some way, but that is not what I am and that is not the type of therapist I want to be.

What is your number 1 advice for someone who is interested in becoming a therapist?
It can be good in therapy, but you must also learn to manage a small business. You need to be organized. You need a accountant and a lawyer. You need to know how to hurry.

How can we introduce ourselves to friends who are afflicted to their loved ones?
The pain persists and can manifest on random days. Then, keep registering the weeks of your friends, months and even years later. For friends and family, I will put the anniversaries of the death of their loved ones in my calendar, so I will remember to arrive. In addition, he present his own saying, apart from ‘forgiveness for his loss’ because he can feel empty. It may be difficult to find the right words, but try to say something a little more genuine, such as what you remember about that person, or even recognize that you don’t know what to say, but you are here for them.

How has your own pain changed to your mother over the years?
My relationship with her has cured a lot since her death. We did not have a close relationship when it grew, but now that I have experienced stress of adulthood and fatherhood, I can understand their life a little better. Now I can also see how certain traumas he experienced affected his upbringing. Having that understanding makes it easier to get it out of the parents’ pedestal and see it more as a human who went through difficult things.

That is beautiful.
Since his death, I have had dreams where he is there. In those dreams, he does not feel controversial. Instead, it is always calm and curative, and we talk about unresolved problems. And when I wake up, I feel relieved knowing that my subconscious was not angry or blaming, he is trying to solve things.

If someone’s pain feels overwhelming, what advice would you give?
I like to help customers to present significant rituals that commemorate this person. When it is my mother’s birthday or death anniversary, I buy the cookies Le Petit Écolier Chocolate Biscuit that I loved, then lights a Yahrzeit candle and listened to Fleetwood Mac. The ritual does not have to be formal, it is about honoring the person who lost.

Thank you very much, Natalie. What other races would you like to see appearing?

PD: what is to be a baker and how to navigate a career change.

(Diana Moss’s photographic illustration)