A key part of counseling involves helping the client identify the problem, propose solutions and execute those plans into action with assessment of progress. This is the core of the Problem Management Model in counseling and is key in helping track a client’s progress.
Please also review AIHCP’s multiple behavioral health certifications ranging from Grief Counseling and Christian Counseling to Crisis, Stress, Life Coaching and Anger Management Programs. The programs are online and independent study and open to qualified professionals in both the behavioral health and health field areas.
In the area of grief and loss, anxiety, trauma, or in special needs, individuals are or can become more closed off from other human beings. Many are unable to express emotions properly, communicate with others, or feel independent to do things or interact with others. Individuals can become closed off to the world and unable to communicate with it. Counselors can utilize a variety of the therapies to help individuals cope better with emotions and also open back up with the world, but sometimes, especially in the case of those with mental defect, individuals need other ways to communicate and express emotion.
Animals and pets can help individuals suffering from anxiety and depression find healing. Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification
Animals and pets are an excellent source of love and way to heal. Animals can bring out the best in people and their presence can reduce stress and depression. Animals hence can play a key role in helping individuals who are grieving or dealing with anxiety.
Animal Therapy for Grief, Depression and Anxiety
Animal Therapy is broad spectrum approach to healing and helping those with autism express themselves, but also those who have experienced trauma, or even those who have anxiety or depression issues. Animals help individuals in a broad variety of ways to rediscover self, heal and move forward. While those who face life long mental issues can gradually improve through animal therapy, those with trauma or temporary issues can also benefit greatly with the company of an animal.
Animal Therapy has a long history, back to even Sigmund Freud, and with the advances of the its modern father, Boris Levinson. The idea of the comforting nature of an animal or pet and his/her presence has a calming effect on human beings. The company of animals can increase serotonin and dopamine, as well as lower cortisol levels by awakening the para sympathetic system. The presence releases tension and allows the person to find healing.
There is no limit to the types of animals that can be utilized. Horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, ferrets and other small mammals, birds, fish and even lizards can all be utilized. Different species have different end goals that can help individuals with particular needs. Dogs play a key role providing comfort and unconditional love, while cats help with individuals who are more awkward with initial touch and need. Horses and equine therapy play a large role in animal therapy and are provided at various locations for those who need to form better connections, trust, and responsibility. Even birds or fish can play a role in helping individuals find connection but also responsibility.
Benefits of Animal Therapy
Animal Therapy helps those with a wide variety of mental issues, but also those dealing with stress, anxiety, loss and depression. Physically, animal therapy, reduces stress and lowers blood pressure and increases dopamine and serotonin. It reduces cortisol and helps the person find comfort and calm. Emotionally, animal therapy, helps individuals find love and support. The unconditional love an animal can supply, or the fact, the animal needs the person, can help the individual feel love when sometimes love is absent in the person’s world.
Psychologically, animals help individual feel love and from that love individuals can find stronger self esteem to feel loved but also to express love to a fellow creature. The need and dependency of the animal upon the person helps build the person’s purpose. In addition, this purpose gives the person duty and responsibility. During therapy, the person is called to care for the animal, supply food and water, or provide basic care such as grooming or walking. Even the smallest duty of having to feed a fish and supplying a need to another creature can have huge therapeutic effects on the person. This sense of purpose also increases self esteem especially with the depressed.
Animals can help the bereaved form new bonds, feel loved and find purpose again
In addition, training and teaching an animal helps individuals improve communication skills, social interaction, and independence to push forward in an endeavor or task. Individuals plagued with depression or other psychological maladies may be less receptive to enter the social arena of human interaction, but through animals, they can find it easier to communicate, wake up and do tasks, and exercise. This also increases one’s sense of trust between another being. Horse riding, or walking form bonds of trust which may be difficult with another person. This trust permits the person to feel more safe in social settings and to put oneself into the hands of another while also giving purpose to care for the other. Individuals experiencing loss may need to form new bonds and the bonds of love and trust and the social skills that are re-introduced through animals can be physically, emotionally and mentally rewarding.
Overall, animal therapy helps form new bonds, increases social interaction, improves communication skills, teaches trust and responsibility and reduces the physical manifestations of stress and anxiety. It gives the person purpose and responsibility again and helps the person re-enter the social world of other human beings or at least better skills to reintegrate oneself into society after trauma or loss, or if dealing with a mental issue. Animal Therapy can help with emotional release, talk therapy, and relief of various negative symptoms.
Obviously animal therapy is not for everyone. Some individuals may have issues that may endanger the animal, or others may be allergic to certain animals. Like all therapies, it depends upon the person but overall animal therapy is a very successful therapy when applied. One can find animal therapy through the referral of a therapist. Many are offered through campuses, hospitals and special programs at rehab centers or correctional facilities.
Conclusion
Animal Therapy can be supplemental with other therapies or a sole therapy. Ultimately, those with deeper issues such as Autism or permanent conditions can benefit greatly from animal therapy. Animals have the ability to help individuals form new bonds, express feelings and explore new skills necessary in social settings. Animals have the ability to bring out physical and emotional wellness by reducing stress and anxiety. Those who experience grief and loss can also form new bonds and find new purpose through animal care and the reciprocity of love that is shared between a person and animal. While animal therapy may not be the answer for everyone, it is highly successful for those suffering from various mental ailments and temporary issues with anxiety or depression.
Horses can play a large role in animal therapy. Please also review AIHCP’s Grief and Stress Management programs
Please also review AIHCP’s mental and behavioral health certifications, as well as in particular, it’s Grief Counseling Certification as well as its Stress Management Certification. The programs are online and independent study with mentorship as needed and is open to qualified professionals in the Healthcare, Human Service and Ministry fields. Please review and see if the programs meet your academic and professional goals.
Additional Resources
Baer, B. (2024). “Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) and emotional support animals”. Therapist.com. Access here
Jelinek, J. (2022). “All About Animal-Assisted Therapy”. PsychCentral. Access here
“Emotional Support/Therapy Animals”. (2017). Good Therapy. Access here
Olivine, A. (2024). “What Is Animal Therapy?” Very Well Health. Access here
“Animal-Assisted Therapy” (2022). Psychology Today Staff. Psychology Today. Access here
This video discusses confronting and challenging clients to transform and find change. Counselors many times have to help push clients see the truth when the client’s own view is distorted. This involves careful and empathetic ways of challenging and confronting. Empathetic confrontation is a key concept within this video. Sometimes to help transformation, clients need have their view and story challenged or emotions confronted.
Please also review AIHCP’s mental health certifications, including Grief Counseling. The certification programs are online and independent study with mentorship as needed. The programs are designed for pastoral as well as clinical counselors in behavioral health, human service and ministry. Please review and see if the programs meet your academic and professional goals
Good response skills are critical to help clients receive feed back. Good responses can help the client move forward in the conversation, hear his/her own words, supply additional insight and help give direction. Responding skills are essential micro skills in counseling and Grief Counselors should be able to utilize good responding skills to help clients better find meaning and emotional validation.
Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification in Grief Counseling.
In addition to Grief Counseling, AIHCP offers a variety of other mental and behavioral health certifications for human service and health care professionals. The programs include Christian Counseling, Spiritual Counseling, Stress Management, Anger Management, Crisis Intervention and Life Coaching. These programs are aimed to help others in existing counseling fields. Be aware to differentiate one’s role as a counselor when only pastoral versus one who is licensed. This is key when applying these certifications to your various levels of academic and professional levels.
Counselors study psychology, various therapies and devote themselves to understanding the science of the mind and behavior, but if the counselor is unable to communicate and attend the client properly, then the knowledge is useless. Counseling hence is also an art. Counselors must possess interpersonal skills that allow them to help their clients. Various micro skills help the counselor attend the client. Basic fundamentals of attending include empathetic listening, observation skills, and appropriate responses. This forms the foundation of the counselor and client relationship and allows therapy to flourish.
Please also review AIHCP’s numerous behavioral health and healthcare certifications in Grief Counseling, Crisis Counseling, Christian Counseling, Spiritual Counseling, Anger Management, Life Coaching and Stress Management. The programs are online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification.
Grief while natural can go many different directions and become in some cases pathological. There are many unique singularities that can make one loss different than another and transverse normal and healthy trajectories into abnormal and pathological trajectories. Grief Counselors can play a key role in guiding clients and helping identify possible clues that can lead to complications in grief. While pastoral counselors who are grief certified can help those along normal trajectories, only licensed and clinical counselors can help those with complications.
Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification and see if it matches your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification in grief counseling. AIHCP certifies both clinical as well as pastoral professionals within the Human Service professions. as well as others within the healthcare fields.
Licensed counselors, Human Service professionals, and other specialized behavioral health therapists can help the bereaved through advanced therapies. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT is one such example, but there are other humanistic approaches that are also patient centered in design. Gestalt Therapy is one such humanistic approach that avoids psycho-analysis and looks to the present state of the person. It looks for the fullness and wholeness of the entirety of the person and issue instead of reviewing merely smaller parts. Designed by Fritz Perls. his wife, Laura Perls and John Goodman in the early 1940s, this approach helps individuals face and cope with emotion in the present moment (Good Therapy, 2018, p.1).
In regards to the bereaved, Gestalt can be an excellent way to help the grieving come more into contact with the emotions they are feeling in the present moment. It can help the depressed focus on the emotions of the now moment and help them find resolution and self-awareness about these feelings. This can usher forward a inner healing for some and help one find resolution with the present moment. The important theme of Gestalt Therapy is that it focuses on the now and how one is feeling in the moment not how one felt in the past or the issues of the past.
Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt focuses on the current emotional state of the client and emphasizes discussion of those emotions
Gestalt Therapy focuses on the now. This is one of its defining qualities. The counselor or therapist will help the client focus on what the client is experiencing in the moment and how to address those emotions in the now moment. This now moment involves a mind and body connection and an awareness within the body of these feelings (Lindsey, 2022). A strong counselor-client connection is important for the client to feel comfortable enough to identify these emotions and discuss them. Furthermore, the Gestalt has a strong phenomenological emphasis on experiencing the process of emotion itself and exploring and evaluating it within the session. This brings one closer to true feeling. Within Gestalt, one is not so much looking for change, but acceptance and understanding of self to better cope and push forward in a productive and non-maladaptive way.
Fritz Perls wished for clients to find more self-awareness of oneself. He hoped one to become more attune with one’s feelings and to better cope with them by identifying and feeling them (Guy-Evans, 2022). Gestalt pushes for the here and now of the moment. It emphasizes that the past cannot change, but the present exists now and can produce transformation. Hence, even past emotions are encouraged to be expressed in the present moment (Guy-Evans, 2023). By understanding the emotion now, one can conclude the unfinished business of the past.
Gestalt Techniques
Gestalt Therapists will utilize a variety of techniques to help the client experience present emotion. Many counselors encourage clients to utilize “I” statements. When discussing an emotion such as anger, instead of stating “they made me angry”, the counselor encourages the client to say “I feel angry when”. This again emphasizes the importance of individual emotion within the moment (Langmaid, 2024).
In addition to this, Gestalt therapists will identify various bodily manifestations correlated with emotion. A person may clench a fist, look downward, raise one’s voice, tap their foot against the ground, twitch, or frown. When these physical manifestations appear, the counselor will help the client identify these manifestations with the emotion felt. Counselors should encourage the client to exaggerate these manifestations during the session. This process in Gestalt is referred to as exaggeration (Good Therapy, 2018, p. 1). This will help clients become more aware of their emotions and how to better regulate them in the future.
The empty chair is perhaps the most famous Gestalt technique. It involves an empty chair where the client is able to speak to the person who is the source of the client’s frustration, abuse, or source of emotion. It could represent an abuser, ex spouse, deceased family member, or even be a conversation between the self (Guy-Evans, 2023). This permits the client to express present emotion but also allows the client to better understand that the power to heal does not depend upon another person but the power is within oneself.
Empathetic confrontation is sometimes a technique employed by therapists as well within Gestalt. This was more widely common in its earlier phases, but in recent times is not as employed. The purpose was to confront the false emotion or shield and help the true emotion to emerge.
Goals and Benefits of Gestalt Therapy
The primary goal of Gestalt is to help clients become more self aware of present emotion and how that emotion is affecting one’s life. It helps to push one to become more self aware and regulating of emotion and to find resolution by accepting the emotional reality that exists. This promotes responsibility on the part of the client to accept certain emotions and work through them.
Guy Evans lists these benefits from Gestalt
Improved sense of self-control
Increased awareness of needs
Improved ability to monitor and regulate emotions
Improved communication skills
Increased tolerance for negative emotions
Improved mindfulness
Increased emotional understanding
Improved ability to view things from another perspective
Increased self-esteem
Increased decision-making skills
Increased interpersonal skills
Increased empathy for others
(Guy-Evans, O. (2023). “Gestalt Therapy: Definition, Types, Techniques, And Efficacy”. Access here
Conclusion
Gestalt is another tool for the counselor. It does not necessarily work for everyone. It may need to be utilized with other therapies. In some cases, clients who wish for more structure, or wish to focus on the past, may find it unhelpful. While others who are still too traumatized by emotion, may find it disturbing. It can definitely bring up strong emotions, so it should only be utilized in a secure setting with a strong client/counselor relationship. Obviously, those who are only pastoral or only certified in grief counseling but lack a professional and clinical license in counseling should not utilize this therapy.
Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification and if it matches your academic and professional goals
For many though, it can help individuals find peace with the present moment and express emotion in a healthy and safe way. It can help a person transform and move beyond past negative emotions and find new resolutions in life to move beyond the pain. In grief, this is especially true. It can provide for the bereaved an outlet to express current emotion and also sort through feelings and emotions with the deceased.
Please also review the American Academy of Grief Counseling’s Grief Counseling Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification as a grief counselor.
Additional Resources
“Gestalt Therapy”. (2018). Good Therapy. Access here
Langmaid, S. (2024). “How Does Gestalt Therapy Work?” WebMD. Access here
Guy-Evans, O. (2023). “Gestalt Therapy: Definition, Types, Techniques, And Efficacy”. Simple Psychology. Access here
Lindsay, C. (2022). “All About Gestalt Therapy”. PsychCentral. Access here
When dealing with grief, individuals deal with the immediate emotions of the loss itself but at the same time, the pain of dealing with secondary losses. Unfortunately, life does not stop while grieving, so the dual process model addresses how a person faces both fronts of loss while grieving. One must face how one is dealing with one’s own pain as well as dealing with life itself.
Grief Counselors many times utilize the Dual Process Model to help others face grief and loss
The video below deals with the Dual Process Model and how grief counselors utilize it. Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals.
Grief is a universal and unbiased in who it afflicts. Unfortunately, children suffer in this fallen world of pain and loss. Throughout the world, children are plagued with horrible images that adults in many nations would never imagine. Children are victims of war, bombings, loss of family and many traumatic incidents. Children are abused in every corner of the world and face horrible trauma. Beyond the most traumatic events, children experience loss at early ages. The loss of a grandparent, or family member, or even a beloved pet. No loss is too small for a child.
Licensed counselors who specialize in children psychology and have training in Play Therapy can help children face trauma, grief and loss. In addition, many licensed professionals and human service professionals earn additional certifications to help children. Some may even specialize in Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling and have a greater understanding of children and the nature of loss. Licensed professionals with specialties and additional training certificates can help children process emotional pain because they are trained to identify and communicate to children. Play Therapy is one type of advanced counseling technique that counselors can utilize to help children.
Children express themselves in play. Please also review AIHCP’s Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Certification
Children grieve differently from adults due to their brain development. Many children are so young that many communicate skills have yet to develop. Children sometimes do not know how to say what emotionally hurts or what is bothering them because they do not know how to articulate it. Children are more right brain developed and many of the feelings, traumas and losses associated with them are experienced in the lower areas of the brain. The Amygdala, Hippocampus, and Thalamus are non-verbal areas of the brain and with children, one must engage in non-verbal ways. In addition, while children have billions of brain cells still forming and becoming more complex within their first five years, these neural pathways are still not complex enough to effectively communicate. The Pre-Frontal Cortex of the adult brain possesses the ability to better communicate, while the child’s less developed area to communicate still needs time. Hence counselors who deal with children, utilize a variety of non-verbal ways to help the child express. Understanding that communication and judgement are operations of the higher parts of the brain, counselors look for signs from the lower areas of the brain that are more primal in expression.
It is because children have less verbal communicate abilities that counselors must look for visible manifestations of emotion within children which can be displayed during play. Among the most common types of physical signs of emotional distress in children, Melinda points out tension, fidgeting, repetitive movements, aggression, self harm, low energy, increased heart rate, hyperactivity, somatic pains, and rapid breathing as things to watch for with children as a way they express emotional distress (2018). These types of physical signs can manifest in counseling, play therapy, or at school or home in children experiencing emotional issues. Many children brought to therapy are already manifesting various social outbursts or behavioral issues that are merely ways of attempting to express difficult emotions due to loss, trauma, or grief.
Play Therapy and Grief
Alan Wolfelt points out that helping children grieve is not just about therapy but is a companioning experience that involves actively participating in the child’s healing (p.1, 2012). Play Therapy involves actively entering into the child’s world, earning the child’s trust, creating a safe place for the child to express in his/her own way and being able to translate those expressions and help the child heal.
Play Therapy owes its origin to Hermine Hug-Helmuth who in 1921, first introduced ideas of allowing children to express themselves in play with toys and other games. Melanie Klein, as well, was a pioneer in the field who discovered that play was a doorway into the child’s subconscious mind. Later in 1938, David Levy would utilize toys and other objects chosen by the child as a way to identify past trauma and relive the traumatic event via play. This became known as Release Therapy. Joseph Solomon employed Active Play as a way to allow children to express emotions such as a fear and anger in a controlled way to help them become more able to interact later socially
Counselors utilize Play Therapy as a way to be build relationship with the child to earn a way into their inner mind according to Anna Freud. Carl Rogers also saw Play Therapy as a way to center the therapy around the needs of the child and build genuine and trustful relationships. These are all critical elements in helping the child express. It is time consuming but necessary to help the child trust and be able to learn the language of the child during play.
Play Therapy helps the counselor understand the language of the child
During Play Therapy, the counselor wants to give the child controlled freedom. The child is allowed to choose the toys in the room or games. The counselor does not look to push serious questions but instead observes and plays with the child. Usually sitting at eye level with the child, the counselor will ask the child about the toys or games the child likes and enjoys. Many times, the counselor will reflect and repeat what the child says and encourage the child to name the toys and express how the toys make them feel. To the foreign eye, it may seem as nothing is occurring but the counselor is attempting to not only gain trust, but is also engaging the child at symbolic and non-verbal way looking for cues of the child’s behavior. In other ways, the counselor is attempting to help the child better express verbally by granting the child freedom of labeling and naming toys. Some counselors may approach with a more directly with more interaction, while others may be less direct.
The room itself is a play room with numerous options for the child to choose from. This includes miniature figures, dolls, doll houses, stuffed animals, puppets, legos, building materials, and other sporting equipment. The toys are a doorway to the child’s symbolic mind and help facilitate healthy expression. Counselors may utilize other ways to express and open creative mindsets through songs and music, story telling or through uses of art, drawing, clay and painting. The key is to help the child tell his/her story, find healing, and discover other ways to find outlets and creative ways to express and rediscover oneself.
Some children who may be grieving, may use dolls or action figures as a way to reflect the life of family members around them. This symbolic expression correlates with their inability to express verbally but through play and expression instead. A child who may be experiencing grief over the loss of a family member, may play out death with a doll or action figure. In addition, certain toys or games or songs may trigger within the child physical symptoms of discomfort that the counselor may identify and notate. During certain activities, children may share information that otherwise would never emerge in an adult conversation.
Conclusion
All people grieve and children are no exception. When children are emotionally hurting, they sometimes do not act logically. To help children grieve and express emotion, counselors need to understand the language of the child. Due to brain development that is not as verbal in children, Child Grief Counselors need to understand the symptoms of emotional distress in children via Play Therapy. Play Therapy helps the child find safety and trust in expressing issues in the child’s own special way during play. Child Grief Counselors who specialize in Play Therapy can help children heal during play by allowing them to express in conducive and healthy ways.
Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling and Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Certifications and see if it matches your academic and professional goals
AIHCP offers a specialty certification in Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling for the American Academy of Grief Counseling’s certified Grief Counselors. This certification trains and educates Grief Counselors in the knowledge of grief in children. While pastoral and non licensed counselors can help individuals with grief, only licensed counselors with grief background, child psychology and training in Play Therapy are permitted to treat children suffering from emotional damage. Pastoral counselors trained in Grief Counseling and Child Grief Counseling, if not licensed, should refer children to clinical professionals with Play Therapy training.
AIHCP’s Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Certification is online and independent study and open to qualified pastoral and clinical human service professionals, as well as those in the healthcare fields.
References and Additional Resources
Wolfelt, A. (2012). “Companioning the Grieving Child”. Companion Press
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT can help the bereaved reassess and reframe negative schemas or feelings surrounding the loss. Clinical counselors can help individuals via CBT to correct and reframe the ideas the bereaved shares and properly understand the loss. If someone is angry or experiencing unneeded guilt, the counselor can help the individual see the situation in a different light. CBT can also help the person face these negative feelings and express them so that they can be properly understood and interpreted.
Pastoral counselors or limited in grief therapy and CBT is reserved for grief counselors who are clinical in practice, but pastoral counselor can use aspects of CBT to help the bereaved understand grief that is following normal trajectories.
Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification and see if it matches your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification in grief counseling. The program is open to both pastoral and clinical counselors or those in the Human Service and Healthcare fields.
