water

Before a person can move into the outwardly-directed, remobilized ‘Air’ stage of recovery from grief, there is still a great deal of ‘water-work, i.e., grief-work, to be done.

Images of oceanic water are most apt for describing the actual grieving process. When first emerging from shock (Phase l) and passing into grieving, (Phase 2: Suffering and Disorganization in Tatelbaum’s schema), the emotions and memories of the griever rapidly succeed one another in rising to the surface of the mind and then in plunging back down again, sometimes taking the griever with them in a flood of tears or a return of shock and disconnectedness. It is crucially important that this process be allowed to happen. Judy Tatelbaum writes,...