On many occasions driven individuals reach an emotional dead end. They can no longer proceed forward and became mentally fatigued. This is referred to as burn out. When an individual burns out they no longer feel the drive or energy to keep doing what they had been doing. This type of burn out can be triggered by a host of things. Usually it is due to putting too much on one’s shoulders and agenda to carry. It then takes easily one thing to make the entire body crumble under the stress. Some question is this type of burnout a type of depression?
Professional burn out can occur to those who push too many boundaries. Is there a big difference between depression and burnout? Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification program
The article, “Is Burnout Actually a Form of Depression? by Grant Brenner looks at how individuals can balance work and life without dismissing the possibility of clinical depression. He states,
“The distinction between burnout and depression is blurry, distracted by impassioned debate. The World Health Organization presents depression and burnout as serious problems — one as a medical illness, and the other as the result of professional factors. Yet they are similar, and depression has been around much longer.”
It is very important to understand one’s mental, emotional and physical barriers. In acknowledging limitations, one can prevent possible burnout or depression. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification and see if it matches your academic and professional goals.
Depression is a chronic state of perpetual sadness. Some forms of depression are acutely caused and temporary while other forms have no real reason and can last for months upon months or reoccur.
Depression is a far more serious state than normal grief reaction. Normal grief reaction results from loss in some form. It proceeds through a series of responses that can go in a particular order or not. Various emotions can skip out of the so called order of denial, anger, bargaining, mourning and acceptance. In fact, normal grief reactions can also have extreme oscillations and reversals to previous states. None of this constitutes depression necessarily. Grief itself is a natural reaction to loss and is not a pathology. Sadness over loss even years after does not designate depression, but the inability to escape continual acute emotional pain and ability to adjust to new life does.
Depression can have a direct cause or no cause. It is important to find help. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
Depression though results in a variety of complications that prevent a normal grief reaction. Sudden or extreme losses can cause depression, as well as, situations surrounding the loss itself. Some losses are so extreme or the situations so gruesome that it can shake the very fabric of the individual’s life narrative. These reactions can lead to later complications in the grief response and prevent adaption to the loss.
Depression hence can be caused due to external issues but it can also be internal. Depression sometimes may have no true cause or loss correlated with it.
The article, “Depression is one of the most common mental health conditions in the United States. There are several different types of depression.” by Jane Leonard looks at the different types of depression and their symptoms. She states,
“Depression is one of the most common mental health conditions in the United States. There are several different types of depression. People with depression experience distinct periods — lasting at least 2 weeks — of sadness, low energy, and loss of interest in things that they once enjoyed. People sometimes refer to these periods as depressive episodes.”
To read the entire article on depression, please click here
It is important to realize that simply certified grief counselors without any type of counseling license cannot treat depression. They can help with others in overcoming the pains of grief but they cannot treat depression. Individuals who are licensed and also obtain a certification in Grief Counseling have the ability to utilize their skills to treat both, natural grief and complications in grief. This does not mean certified grief counselors do not play an important role. Those who are only certified but not licensed as counselors, can still help others overcome loss and possibly identify signs of grief complication. They can serve as front line soldiers in helping others find the help they need in overcoming depression.
Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification program and see if it matches your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and is open to qualified professionals seeking certification.
Grief and lack of sleep can go both coincide. Grief can affect sleep patterns in negative ways. The lack of sleep and depression can have multiple effects on one’s health. It is important to manage depression and sleep and to find the necessary help to be healthy emotionally and physically.
Depression and lack of sleep is an unhealthy combination. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
The article, “What is the relationship between depression and sleep?” by Timothy Legg states,
“According to one scientific journal, sleep loss might contribute to neurochemical changes in the brain, which can result in depression. The researchers also suggest that depression may lead to disrupted sleeping patterns.”
Bad sleep and depression build on each other in the most negative ways. It is best to treat one’s depression so sleep is not affected. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification and see if it matches your academic and professional goals.
It can become very difficult to know when you are truly depressed or just dealing with the grey and cold skies of Winter. Many individuals naturally feel more depressed with less day light and the ending of the holidays and Christmas. These things are natural but for some it is hard to tell the difference between true depression and the winter blues.
Is it depression or just the winter blues? Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification Program
The article, “How to Know the Difference Between the Winter Blues and Depression – and What You Can do About It” from Localtalk Contributor looks more deeply at the differences and what can be done about it. The article states,
“More than 300 million people worldwide experience depression. Depression can affect anyone regardless of age, culture or lifestyle. Many factors can impact mental health including medical illness, environment, challenging life events and memories. There are often multiple causes, but it is not anyone’s fault. ”
Veterans face a tough road with grief, anxiety and PTSD. The things soldiers see in war is sometimes traumatic and scarring to the individual soldier. Many soldiers do not receive the help they need. Instead they face many issues alone. It is important for them to meet with others, discuss and review traumatic events.
Soldiers face trauma and loss possibly everyday and have to deal with their entire life. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
The article, “7 WAYS GRIEF AFFECTS VETERANS” by Pat Harriman states,
“Researchers determined levels of grief, including preoccupation with a lost comrade and inability to accept the loss, through participants’ self-reported combat exposure, unit cohesion, PTSD symptoms, anger, past post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression diagnoses, and pre-deployment life events.”
Grief counselors and other specialists can help work with soldiers face these issues. There are so many issues under laying trauma that need to be exposed and discussed for proper healing. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification.
Some individuals while coping through grief deal with difficulties in overcoming the grief due to various thoughts that surround the death or incident. Trying to escape these thoughts can become exhausting emotionally. Whats Your Grief refers to these as stuck points, when someone is unable to move past a certain aspect of the loss.
Usually these points challenge pre-conceived notions or values. The loss makes the griever doubt these notions and prevents them from moving forward but keeps them constantly stuck, re-tracking and falling prey to those thoughts. This is very detrimental to the grieving process and coping
PTSD and other problems can make individuals stuck in grief due to thoughts that prevent coping and advancement in the grief process
The article, “What are Stuck Points in Grief?” from Whats Your Grief states,
“Stuck points refer to thoughts that repeatedly bubble up in a person’s inner (and outer) dialogue that make it difficult for a person to process, cope with, or reconcile their experiences. To me, stuck points are like mean old trolls living under a bridge. Whenever a person tries to gain some momentum in working through their experiences, the troll comes up and says “Nope, you can’t pass. Now go back and think about what’s happened.”
Another type of stuck point is a religious view some may contend with. Many pray to God for cures or good things to occur. The problem is sometimes that cure does not occur. Bad things do happen to good people.
This can create a complex within someone that creates a religious paradigm within the individual. While coping with grief and loss, they may constantly turn back to “Why did God do this to me?” or “Were not my prayers good enough?”
In addition to this, others may begin to see their loss in a form of religious struggle. If God is good how can he allow this evil? Or if God is good, then he must not be All Powerful to allow this evil?
These spiritual dilemmas are a result of primitive understanding of faith. First, prayer is not contract. When prayer is seen as contract, it fails to meet the relationship that exists. A covenant of mutual care not necessarily answers that we demand if we do this or that.
Second, God is All Powerful and All Good, but he has given free will to others. This permits evil. One can also not see the over all view of existence within our temporal realm.
Loss can challenge preconceived notions of life and the universe, as well as previously held religious and spiritual beliefs. This can cause intense anxiety during the grief process
The article also does a good job at looking at other world views that are not religious. The ideal of the world being a safe place when violence occurs to a loved one can have long lingering effects.
Grief is difficult enough to deal with. Coping with a loss can be difficult but when certain ideas regarding that loss start to affect one’s coping and emotions, then they need to be analyzed and understood. As the article states, one should document in a diary how common these thoughts are and relate them to reason as opposed to emotion. If necessary, talk about these thoughts and try to get passed them.
If you would like to learn more about Grief Counseling, then please review our Grief Counseling Program and see if it matches your academic and professional goals.
The program is a home study program. It is online and self paced. As an independent study program you go at your own pace. After completing the required four courses, you can proceed to apply for certification. Certification is four years and can be renewed as needed.
Grief can become a difficult thing in life. It can scar one forever but it can also take control of life if one is unable to properly cope with its elements. Learning to embrace grief and what comes with it is the best strategy instead of trying to avoid it and not express. Repression creates a bigger grief monster.
Coping with grief and finally finding joy in what was once is a difficult step in recovery. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
The article, “Taming the Grief Monster” by Linda Zelik looks at when the joy of possessing what was lost eventually overtakes the pain of losing it. In particular the tragic loss of a child. She states,
“Traversing this path of profound grief may be the most difficult thing you ever face in life. Unfortunately, there are no magic wands or quick fixes. How could there be? A parent’s love for their child is total and unconditional, unlike any other kind of love. Even if we didn’t always like their actions or choices, our children held our love and it never wavered.”
Many women while pregnant experience a variety of emotional swings. Depression unfortunately is not an exception to what an expecting mother may go through during pregnancy.
Depression can occur for women during and after pregnancy. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals
The article, “Pregnant and Depressed” by Joanna Novak looks into how depression can affect pregnant women. In addition to depression during, issues also can arise afterwards. She states,
“Fifteen percent of women will suffer from depression following childbirth—and some of those cases could be prevented by catching depression that starts during pregnancy. What’s more, depression, like any other medical condition, comes with risks for the fetus as well as the mother. ”
Miscarriage may seem invisible to many but it is a reality that can affect a couple or woman. The expectations and joy of what if can all be lost in a miscarriage. The lost of a life whether born or not yet born may be less visible but it is still a real loss of a child. The loss of a child takes away the status of motherhood or fatherhood potentially to individuals.
Miscarriages represent true loss. Many parents suffer without any consolation. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
The article, “Early Miscarriage Is An Invisible Loss, But The Grief Is Real” discusses this loss. Beth Bailey states,
“There was nothing chemical about the pregnancy my body briefly nurtured. Its effects may have been invisible to those around me, but the child was real and much desired. The loss was greatly mourned.”
This type of loss is common but rarely acknowledged as true loss for many. To read the entire article, please click here
Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification program and see if it matches your academic and professional goals
After a miscarriage so many emotions can erupt. For some relief but with that relief possibly guilt. Some may also mourn the loss and feel extreme sadness and anger. These emotions are natural with such a close loss to one’s self. Miscarriage loss is something that is many times swept to the side but is indeed a big loss with multiple emotions that can interact in strange ways.
Miscarriage is a big loss for many women. Numerous emotions surround it. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
The article, “After a Miscarriage, Grief, Anger, Envy, Relief and Guilt” by Jessica Grose stated,
“October is pregnancy and infant loss awareness month, and if your family has experienced any kind of loss, we are here for you. Miscarriage is common — as many as 15 percent of known pregnancies end in a first-trimester loss.”
Dealing with grief especially after the loss of a child in womb or out is a difficult thing to deal with. Sometimes grief counseling is needed to help others overcome these type of miscarriage losses. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
