Employers have been urged to not just support employees at the point of bereavement but six months later in the form of a review to identify “problematic” grief.
The calls comes from Laura Scarrone Bonhomme (pictured), clinical psychologist and head of mental health services at Teladoc Health UK & Ireland.
She spoke to Health & Protection ahead of World Mental Health Day on 10 October which was particularly important following an 18 month period in which hundreds of thousands of people across the country have been bereaved due to the pandemic.
Scarrone Bonhomme explained that she would not recommend that anyone engages with therapy in the early stages of grief.
“What we can find is that the individual may deflect all their agency and responsibility to process these emotions,” Scarrone Bonhomme said.
“It’s almost as if it’s like, ‘oh great, I have the psychologist or the psychotherapist and I’m going to give them everything that I have’. It’s important to stick with the pain and that grief will come later.”
Consequently, Scarrone Bonhomme recommends that companies conduct six month reviews after the passing of a loved one to find out how that employee’s relationships at work are being affected, whether they need to spend time on their own or if they feel the need to avoid the rest of their team.
“In many organisations, we have recommended not coming to therapy for six months after anyone in your life passes.” she said.
“At times we haven’t been as strict but we do bear this in mind as a consideration and this is because if it’s taking more than six months and you see that things aren’t getting any better, this is where we can start considering is this grief problematic? Is there something else to it?”
Death cafes
Scarrone Bonhomme added this is all about normalising these conversations.
“There is an idea I really like, and I’m aware that there are many of them in London, which are called death cafes,” she said.
“In those places you go and share a coffee and talk about a family member who has passed but almost in a natural way of ‘I remember this or I remember that and this was difficult’.
“I think there is such a stigma around bereavement because people don’t know what to do. They feel there’s not much they can do about this. So many people keep it inside.”