Episode Details

Episode 19:  Healing from Losses, Healing with Grief

June 8, 2020

Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis:  Carpe Diem, where you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview.   We are going beyond mere resiliency, to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before.  I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski your host and guide, with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com.  Thank you for being here with me.  This is episode 19, Healing from Losses, Healing with Grief, released on June 8, 2020.  And in this episode we really get into how do we heal?  How do we move through our losses and heal?

Story Time

Remember the story of Richard and Susan from Episode 17?  Let’s catch up with them and see how they are doing.  Now Richard and Susan have been married 28 years, and their three sons are 27, 25, and 23 years old, and all have moved out of the home and are very busy with their lives.  

Richard is 61 years old and is somewhat emotionally reserved – he was introverted, and didn’t talk a lot about feelings.  He is not that interested in religion, but usually attends Sunday Mass with Susan. He had risen in management at his international engineering firm, eventually leading a team of six in joint venture in artificial intelligence with a foreign company.   When that joint venture ended abruptly due to the other firm stealing intellectual property, and the coronavirus lockdowns happened, Richard was laid off.  With the worsening economic environment, it’s unlikely he will return to that position.  He is struggling with identity issues now, as he has been so invested in his work for so many years. After the layoff he initially kept himself busy with home projects and tinkering with go karts, but lately he has been much more withdrawn and spent much more time distracting himself on the internet, and also experimenting with day-trading stocks.  

Susan is 60, she is more extroverted, much more emotionally expressive with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances.  Susan is eagerly awaiting grandchildren now that her oldest son has married.  She had been hoping that with her husband home from work and their sons moved out, they would renew their relationship, but there is more distance than ever.  Susan has been troubled by the emotional distance in her marriage for the last 25 years, and doesn’t know what to do about it, and for several years there has been almost no physical closeness.  This is more acute for her now, that her social activities and connections have been curtailed by the social distancing restrictions.  

Twenty years ago, Susan experienced a real deepening of her faith and she began to practice it more seriously, with a regular prayer life an occasional daily Mass and regular confession.  She had a scare with breast cancer five years ago from which she recovered.  She continues to be in high demand as a professional translator in Spanish and Italian.   She has been deeply worried upon finding out two weeks that the first case of the coronavirus has been confirmed at her mother’s assisted living facility.  Now her 87 year old mother has shortness of breath, a fever, fatigue and a cough.  Now her mother’s health is failing rapidly as they wait for the results of a COVID-19 test.  Susan also recently discovered a pornographic pop up window on her husband’s home office desktop.   She asked her husband about it, but he said it was nothing.   

Quick review from episode 17, where we made clear some definitions.  

Loss: deprived of a real, tangible good.  Something good is taken from us – it can be the loss of an actual good, or a potential good.

Grief is our individual experience of loss –Gri