It’s not unusual for clients to experience feelings of regret after losing someone or something they hold dear.
But according to Richard Schwartz, PhD, there are two specific forms of regret that can prolong a client’s grief.
So in the video below, Richard shares an Internal Family Systems approach for targeting both types of regret to unlock the grieving process.
And what you find with those kinds of regrets is that it really tails back to grief, that if you stop, if you go to the part who’s saying these things all the time and ask what it’s afraid would happen if it didn’t obsess that way, then it’s going to be… the client will be overwhelmed with all these losses. So then we negotiate permission to go to the parts that are stuck in those scenes and carry all the loss, and work with them, and get them out of there, and help them connect to self, and ultimately, you can’t unload the grief, but you can help them not feel so isolated.
And, like in the client I was mentioning, help them feel connected to the self who can take care of them, in the way the parent they lost, they had wished the parent that they’d lost would have, and while they’re stuck back in that scene, they’re just isolated there. The part doesn’t know from self a lot of the time. So really, just reconnecting with that grieving young child, and helping form this ongoing healing relationship with self, then the obsessions tend to dissipate a lot.
When it’s the other, where I worked recently with a client whose dog died, and from an illness, and it was sort of true, had she gone to the vet sooner, probably they could have extended the life a bit. So the part was furious with her, and was constantly saying that she’s a terrible person because she didn’t do that. You know, the problem with so many sort of CBT-like approaches, where you want to lay out the data to the part, and say, “I get it, but I had this other thing going on. I couldn’t have done it,” or you try to rationalize with the part, generally, in both kinds of regret, just makes it worse.
So I would have the client focus on that obsessive part and, as in IFS, ask how they feel toward it. And even though it’s being really nasty to them, if I can get all the parts that are trying to defend the client or react to the nastiness to give it some space. “Now how do you feel toward it?” “I feel sorry for it,” most of the time. “Can you show it you feel sorry for it?” And often, suddenly the image shifts from being some kind of nasty, critical, parent-looking person, to being young. The image of the part shifts, the part that’s chastising, and they can get close to that one and just help it be direct.
I’ll often say, “Ask this part to be direct and honest about why it’s doing this and what it’s afraid would happen if it didn’t.” And again, it’s often this part itself feels so much loss with the dog having died, and it doesn’t know what else to do than to blame, just like a kid might, because they’re all pretty young. And as self can be open-hearted in face of that, and listen, and give a genuine apology, like, “I’m really sorry that I didn’t go to the vet sooner. I’m really sorry that that caused this loss for you,” then you just start this different relationship with that part that’s so obsessed, and yeah, and you get to the grief that it carries and the grief that other parts carry, that it’s in some ways distracting from with the self-blame. The self-blame which can also turn into self-hate if it goes on long enough and you try to fight with it enough, and try to defend yourself enough.
Regret can keep clients stuck in the past and unable to process their grief. That’s why we created this course on Strategies to Help Clients Process Grief and Loss. Inside, you’ll hear from experts including Richard Schwartz, PhD; Frank Anderson, MD; Janina Fisher, PhD; Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD; and more.
Now we’d like to hear from you. What strategies have you used to help clients who are stuck in grief? Please let us know in the comments below.
This is VERY helpful, thank you so much
Is there a training on regret? Or what is the training where this video comes from?
Susan baldasano LMFT
My daughter’s husband committed suicide three months ago leaving behind my daughter, granddaughter, and other relatives. My daughter blames herself and my granddaughter feels empty. They both are going to professional therapists and seem to be getting better. They both are now participating in outdoor activities and social groups. I stay out of counseling them because I don’t feel like I really should or know how. I think it’s best to let outside specialists intervene and do what they know how to do.