| Supporting
Clients in Transition Article
With the holidays just around the corner, your
clients may already be wrestling with how to handle
the family gatherings that are an inherent
part of the holidays.
Family gatherings can be high pressured events
because these dinners bring with them memories of all
past holidays -- the good, the bad, and yes, even the
ugly. Layered on top of difficult family dynamics may
be memories of prior losses.
These prior losses may trigger an anniversary response
in your clients that impacts how safe they feel in groups,
their emotional state, and their ability to
enjoy the holidays.
An anniversary response or reaction occurs when your
client re-experiences feelings similar to those that
would have been appropriate during an original trauma.
Most psychologists believe emotions that could not be
felt or resolved at the time of an original event are
triggered at the anniversary. Experiencing the emotions
a second time gives the person an opportunity to heal
and resolve them.
First identified as an important psychological concept
by Freud, others have continued to notice and study
this phenomenon.
Long before I read the psychological research literature
on this topic, I had a number of personal experiences
that made me aware of the power and significance of
this internal dynamic.
For several years after my father's death,
the second week of December was a time of darkness and
sadness for my Mom and me. Although we'd never
talk about it prior to that week, when we'd check in
during that week, we'd both be having a hard time. Invariably,
as soon as December 11th came around, we'd feel lifted
to a new level.
I also noticed similar feelings in the fourth
week of June that coincided with my father's original
diagnosis.
Now one might say we were quite conscious of the date
of his death and diagnosis and we somehow consciously
or subconsciously manufactured the feelings to fit the
time of year. And that may be true, but there have been
enough times in my work
with clients when naming their anniversary helped them
gain new clarity about what they were feeling and why
they were feeling it. Often just making the connection
to a past event allowed them to direct their thoughts
to healing that event rather than trying to skew a current
scenario to account for their distress and angst.
And then there was the month I received two
amazing phone calls from my grandmother. The
sequence of events that follows made me want to learn
as much as I could about the dynamics behind the Anniversary
Response.
Three years after my father died, his father
fell at home. Due to surrounding circumstances
we decided my grandmother could no longer care for him
at home.
Three weeks later he died at age 92. We then moved my
grandmother to a senior residence.
Exactly one year after his fall, my grandmother called
me to say "Wilson" had fallen and couldn't
get up. He wouldn't eat. She was telling me what she
should have called to tell us the previous year.
Exactly one year to the hour of when my grandfather
died, she called me again to tell me "Wilson" was cold. She wanted to go to the office to get help.
Again, she was going through the steps that were appropriate
for the events one year prior.
What made this sequence of events so astounding to
me is that my grandmother, by this time, had enough
dementia that she didn't *know* what day or year it
was. Something within her was triggering these anniversary
reactions that allowed her to experience a year later
what she couldn't handle or process in real time when
my grandfather fell and died. At no time during that
first year or the next year did my
grandmother call me to have these conversations...it
was only on these anniversary dates. In other conversations
I had with her before and after these two calls, she
knew perfectly well that my grandfather, her husband
of 58 years who she sorely missed, had passed away.
Typically clients experiencing an Anniversary
Response will report feeling anxious, tearful, and uneasy,
but the intensity and range of their emotions won't
be consistent with the current events in their lives.
They may seem more distraught than current events warrant.
They may be thrown off balance by a tiny element of
their current situation and be distorting its influence
on their current life.
When your clients' emotions are out of sync
with their current situation, ask if them this day/week/month
is an anniversary of any kind. (At the end
of this newsletter, I describe a number of events that
may trigger the anniversary response when not resolved
emotionally.)
The literature shows several common anniversary
patterns. By being aware of these, you'll be
able to assist your client in sorting out why they feel
the way they do. Awareness of the link to past events
is key to transformation.
- Anniversary of a Major Event or Trauma:
The day or month of a key event may trigger an anniversary
response. Similar feelings may recur each year as
your client's heals each layer of their experience.
- Your Client's Child Reaches the Age They
Were when they experienced a trauma: For
instance, if your client was five when he was in an
accident, he could have an anniversary response when
his child turns five.
- Your Client Reaches the Age a Parent Was
when he/she experienced a trauma or death:
For example, if your client's mother died or became
ill at 42,
your client may experience an anniversary response
when she turns 42.
- Your Client Has a String of Events that
all happen in a particular month. Trace it
back. What was the first transition? Are the subsequent
transitions providing your client with an opportunity
to relive the emotions they weren't
able to handle the first time around?
- Significant Dates. In some cases,
the loved one's birthday, wedding anniversary, or
key family holidays may trigger an anniversary response.
- A Particular Day of the Month.
After my father died on December 11th, my brother
swore that the 11th of each month was an incredibly
bad day for him
several years running.
Use each of these patterns as a way to help
your client decipher their own anniversary patterns.
Sometimes showing them a possible pattern opens up new
insights.
Use the following list to prompt your clients
as they try to decipher whether their emotions are the
result of the present or a past event.
Ask your client if their current uneasiness
coincides with any of the following:
- Diagnosis dates for oneself, a family member, or
a close friend.
- Dates of a significant accident or injury.
- Dates of a loved one's death due to illness, accident,
or suicide.
- Key dates of abuse. Although abuse may not bring
a discrete date to mind, a season or holiday may be
an anniversary trigger.
- Dates of violence due to a burglary, attack, or
rape.
- Date of separation and/or divorce.
- Date lost a baby. Whether the loss was pre-birth
by miscarriage or by choice or post birth, the grief
is intense.
- Date of a community disaster. A fire, earthquake,
tornado, or flood may impact your client whether they
experienced a loss or the threat of a loss.
- Moving date. A move as a child may have been traumatic
so don't just focus on recent moves.
- Date of a suicide attempt.
Obviously these prompts bring up potentially
intense topics. Remember, however, if you are
having to ask them these prompts to help them unearth
an anniversary, they are probably not "in"
the depths of despair about the topic itself. If fact,
they may have buried it so deeply that they may not
make the connection for several days after you ask the
question.
Do pay attention to how your discussion impacts
your client. If it opens up a link to a past
trauma, encourage your client to get the support they
need to resolve and heal their remaining emotions. Sometimes
just making the connection is enough and they are able
to find closure on their own. In other cases, they may
need professional support to complete their healing
process.
The important thing to remember is that this
transition has been impacting them for years under the
radar. By bringing the topic to their awareness,
you are giving them a catalyst for healing themselves
at a deep level.
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