Helping To Heal The Grief

A university health center has experienced anincrease in the number of women undergoing elective abortion whichresulted in their seeking counseling services to assist them indealing with overwhelming feelings of guilt and grief. The loss of apregnancy is often followed by a typical grief reaction that occursafter any bereavement. In working with a number of women who wereexperiencing post-abortion grief and guilt, the women indicated thattheir abortions were performed at a variety of public and privateclinic settings. The settings were described as being highly medicalin nature. An amalgamation and synthesis of the literature review ledto the therapeutic concept with these women that the clinic in whichtheir abortion occurred was now a "sacred site " because of theirexperiences there. Using the setting to help validate the loss, thewomen were recommended to re-visit the site of their abortions andsit outside the facility for 10-15 minutes so that they could re-livetheir experience and speak to their fetus/child. If they chose, theycould leave something behind as an offering after they had time toreflect upon their experience. It is recommended that practicingtherapists continue to develop creative approaches to ease anyguilt/grief reactions caused in the aftermath of elective abortion,and more importantly for women to be there for each other. (AM.) ***********************************************************************Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be wadefrom the original document. *****************************************************************x****