As I have tried to help people, both as a pastor and now as a therapist, move through their experience of grief, I have not had a good model for what is known as complicated grief. Complex or complicated grief lasts longer than most people mourn a loss, and is so intense it blocks every other life experience of drive, desire and pleasure.
Researchers at UCLA have made brain scans of complex grief that look and behave like trauma would. Treating complex grief with a model of exposure therapy has shown a great deal of promise for people.
At last, a map for this territory!
Being Blog • Complicated Grief: How to Lessen Pain that Persists