What Comes After?

Purpose and Goals:

This process asks the client to examine their beliefs about what happens to a person after they die, and how it impacts their own acceptance and adjustment to such loss, including the positive and negative impacts of their beliefs.

Purpose:

• Explore how beliefs impact how the client grieves

• Recognize the impact that spiritual beliefs have on accepting or adjusting to their loss

• Express and externalize complex emotions in a safe way to process grief

• Re-evaluating values and beliefs (especially if there’s been a crisis of faith).

• Finding ways to remember the deceased and continuing to live, rather than suppressing feelings or becoming stuck in the post.

Theoretical Rationale:

The art directive is designed to facilitate Worden tasks of mourning (Worden, 2018). Worden's four tasks of mourning are a framework for navigating grief:

• Accept the reality of the loss

• Process the pain of grief

• Adjust to a world where the deceased is absent

• Find an enduring connection with the deceased while moving on with life

Worden, J. W. (2018). Grief counseling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner. Springer Publishing Company, LLC.

• Building on an adaptable and accessible framework to inspire and encourage clinical intuition through art-making.

• Orient bereaved towards externalizing, facilitating insight and understanding.

• Understanding how has death affected feelings about self, abilities, and beliefs.

Art-Making:

Ask the client to take a few moments to consider what their personal beliefs are about what happens to a person after they die? Where does the person/soul go after death? How do they feel these beliefs are impacting their grief?

Ask them to create a piece depicting their beliefs and views of what happens to a person after death.

Reflection:

• Can you tell me about the piece you’ve created?

• Can you share with me your belief on what happens when we die?

• How is that depicted in your creation?

• If you could assign one word to describe your artwork, what would that be? And what does that word mean to you?

• How do you feel these beliefs impact your grief?

• How do you think these beliefs impact your life in general?

• Can you think of specific times where your beliefs were helpful in your grief journey? harmful? How so?

• Are there any changes you would like to make around your beliefs and their impact on your grief? What steps could you take to make these changes a reality?