The experience of grief and loss is highly individualized. There is no cookie-cutter amount of time grieving lasts, nor is there a step-by-step foolproof plan to eliminate the often painful feelings associated with loss. However, there are many tips and strategies to help ease discomfort while allowing the grief process to unfold naturally.
Below are 5 of our most helpful strategies.
1. Seek out a support system. While experiencing grief, spending time with supportive friends, family members and people in your community can be extremely helpful. If you feel comfortable, discussing your emotions and grief experience with your support system can be very therapeutic. Joining a support group can connect you with others who are enduring similar grief experiences and can help diminish feelings of loneliness/isolation.
2. Engage in self-care. While grieving, by taking care of ourselves through exercise, eating healthy, prioritizing a healthy amount of sleep, engaging in social connections, refraining from mood-altering substance use, etc., we can reduce our vulnerability to stress and painful emotions.
3. Engage in pleasurable activities. It can be especially helpful to continue to partake in the pleasurable hobbies and interests you engaged in before the loss, as there can be comfort in routine.
4. Acknowledge and express your feelings. Shock, denial, anger, sadness, guilt, and anxiety are common feelings associated with grief and loss. Trying to avoid these feelings all-together can actually backfire and keep them around for longer. Writing about your feelings in a journal or through art can be a calming outlet for emotional expression.
5. Give yourself permission to take time to grieve. There is no appropriate amount of time the grieving process is supposed to take, and usually feelings and the intensity of grief fluctuate. Be patient with yourself and make a conscious decision to practice self-compassion.
If you or someone you know is grieving and would like further support, please contact McCaskill Family Services to schedule an appointment with a licensed mental health professional who specializes in grief therapy. Both tele-health and in-person appointments can be made by telephone at 734-416-9098 and/or by email at office@mccaskillfamilyservices.com
by: Emily Kavanagh, MS, LLP
Individuals with dyslexia are often creative, out-of-the-box thinkers with the ability to problem-solve in ways that others may not think of. Some of the world’s greatest inventors, teachers, entertainers,...
A Proactive Tool for Managing Negative Emotions from DBT
By: Jaclyn Rink
Try accumulating positives that impact you in both the short-term and long term.
Short Term: Do pleasant things that are possible now (e.g., play a fun...
In my 25 years of evaluating and treating individuals with Learning Disabilities (LD’s), I have come to the ongoing conclusion that they are quite often misunderstood, even by educational and healthcare professionals. There are...
Fill Up Your Gas Tank: 50 Simple Self-Care Ideas
I hear it every day, “Jaclyn, I don’t have time for self-care.” With our lives being as busy as they are, I can completely understand this. We are trying to simultaneously...
By Drs. John and Pamela McCaskill
With the recent tragic school shooting in our home state of Michigan, people are asking us, “How will I know if a student is at risk for being an active school shooter?”
We wish we...
By Truc Nyguen, MS, LLP
We all know one thing for certain… getting kids back on their normal sleep schedule during the school year is a crucial (and super frustrating) aspect for school success. We know that sleep plays an extremely...
Autism Q&A
With Nicole Wozniak, Psy.D
What is Autism?
A neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social, emotional, and/or communication problems. Individuals with autism may exhibit repetitive, stereotyped behaviors and have...
By: Jaclyn Rink, MSCP, LLP
The CDC recommends limiting your tech time to 2 hours per day, not including the time necessary to do homework/work.
Children and teens (ages 8-18) spend approximately 7.5 hours a day on...
By Dr. Amanda Klingensmith, PH.D.
Summer is finally here! What’s the number one priority on most kids’ list this summer: play as much and as often as possible! For some kids, this means playing as many hours of video games as...
By Alesha Miller, MS, LLP
Debunking some of the most common Myths about Eating Disorders.
Myth: Eating disorders are not a big deal.
Fact: Many people believe eating disorder are just about food and often encourage their loved one to...
By Pamela A. McCaskill, Ph.D., LP
Have you ever wondered what this past year has been like from a psychologist’s perspective? People often ask me, how are you doing in the midst of all this chaos? To put it mildly, the past...
By: Jaclyn Rink, MSCP, LLP
Follow someone who debunks “influencers” and how they take photos
Follow someone who promotes good news happening in the world (e.g., acts of kindness etc.)
Follow someone who promotes...
By: Pamela A. McCaskill, Ph.D.
One of the most common questions parents are asking me these days is, “How do I limit my child’s use of technology and screen-time when it seems to be so much a part of their daily learning,...
By: Nicole Wozniak, Psy.D., LP.
What do you get when you add one part global pandemic, one part virtual schooling, and one part uncertainty about the future? The answer is the perfect recipe for anxiety. At some point this year, you...
By: Dr. Nicole Wozniak, PsyD.
It used to be that every year, August to June, people knew what to expect. In August, parents took their children shopping for new school supplies, while teachers began organizing classrooms and lesson...
By Emily Brzak, MA, TLLP.
1. Think of the new year as a blank slate. This is an excellent time to begin a new hobby or establish a new goal to steadily work towards. Mine? Train my 12-week old puppy Lola to chew on objects that are not...
By: Ellen Barrett-Becker, Ph.D.
Covid-19 has created unprecedented stress for all of us. Balancing new work and school demands during the pandemic has been uniquely challenging. Luckily, mindfulness-based techniques can help you find your center and calm in the storm of stress and anxiety.
By: Jaclyn Rink, MSCP, LLP.
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind for our world. There has been so much movement. We panicked a bit.. (ok, maybe a lot), we stocked up on Kraft Mac N’ Cheese, shut-down our schools, brought our work...
By Beverly M. Griffor, MA, JD, MS, MBA, TLLP
This is a time of changing rules and unsettled norms. Parents are trying to teach their children, all while working from home or coping with layoffs. Children are missing their friends and the ease of...
By Jaclyn Rink, MS
It took me many weeks of merely thinking about this blog post before I actually sat down to write it. Simply, because it felt overwhelming. What in the world would I write about trying to compose a blog post for parents who are...
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an empirically supported treatment that aims to teach skills and strategies that help to regulate emotions and improve relationships. There are four main categories of skills: Mindfulness, Distress...
This article in the New York Times is very interesting to read if your child was born in August and you have worries or questions about ADHD. It discusses the link between August births and ADHD – a new study that raises questions about...
We thought this was an excellent article to share – a recent report from the Child Mind Institute in New York. Anxiety disorders are the most common health problems in children, and they often go untreated while children suffer. Kids with...
A few photos from our recent, very successful team building event at the Brighton Equestrian Club. Thank you to our friends at the BEC for providing such a fantastic venue. And, of course, thank you to the horses for helping to make our day...
It’s been an exciting couple of years at McCaskill Family Services! We have been helping people in Plymouth and surrounding areas since Drs. Pam and John McCaskill started the practice way back in 1997. It has been an incredible journey and...
By Emily Kavanagh, M.S.
Limited Licensed Psychologist
Director, McCaskill Family Services Assistive Technology Center
Assistive Technology (AT) refers to: “Any item, any piece of equipment or any system that helps an individual bypass,...
By Dr. Amanda Klingensmith, Ph.D.
Many families have a hard time finding resources for their children with tics.
With medications, some patients experience awful side effects, and some find that medications do not affect tic frequency or...
By Dr. Fred Upton, Ph.D.
I am a person who always wants to have more data.
I love step-trackers, heart rate monitors, spread sheets and functional analyses of behavior. If I can graph a behavior, I feel like I can control it. This is not...
By Truc Nguyen
Taking care of yourself first and making your mental and physical well-being a priority sounds easy enough, right?
However, as easy as it sounds, it can also sound kind of selfish at times. Well, I’m here to help...
By Jaclyn Rink
MSCP, Limited Licensed Psychologist
People tend to think they need help from a mental health professional the moment they catch themselves having conversations in their own head.
A little bit of friendly banter with...
By Hannah Burgol
Ever since I was young I knew I wanted to work in a setting that was helping people in some way.
Throughout my childhood leading into adulthood, the healthcare field was where I felt I belonged given the time I had spent in...
