PT: How do these people come to terms with their personal responsibility? FW: Sometimes they're not aware that they're blaming themselves until I ask them, "What would your family think about it if this business failed?" and "What do you think your friends are saying about you?" At first they feel more like a total failure if society, their families, and they define themselves by their business. This is especially true of somebody who names his business for himself. John Jones Company failed, John Jones is a failure. It is a total failure for a man. It isn't for a woman, because she usually defines herself differently.
PT: What do you say if that's true?
FW: That is a heavily stereotyped way to have to think about yourself--that you're no more than the business. I help people get out of the trap of gender stereotypes. A man is more than his business. He isn't merely as good as his last performance or his paycheck. There's more to him than that, and I help him find other aspects of himself.
PT: What if there really wasn't very much besides that?
FW: Such men are at very high risk for major depression and suicide. Suicide in midlife men is extremely high and it's associated with business failure. But it can be an opportunity that forces a man to reorient his life so that it isn't so totally defined by the job he holds and the amount of money he earns. Most men want to get out of that. By midlife it feels like a straitjacket. Most men in midlife are turning back to their families. The good news about a business failure is you're still alive and you are able to reorient your life. It's like a near-death experience. You see yourself with a real clarity--what really matters in life and what doesn't matter.
PT: What about other non-death losses?
FW: The same principles that apply to loss by death apply to major family changes like divorce. There's the loss of a significant family member. Divorce is in fact more complicated. The marriage is dead but the person is still alive. It is more painful to continue to relate through children knowing that the marriage is dead. In therapy, some people admit they are very much ashamed that they wished their spouse had died; it would have been easier. In that case, you idealize the spouse; in divorce, the legal process heightens the conflict while you continue coparenting and watch your former spouse remarry. It's a partial loss you have to deal with on a recurring basis. That is why so many fathers cut off--it's too painful to keep coming back to their former home where their wife isn't their wife any more. That's also why so many men murder their estranged wives.
PT: What rituals and tasks can a family use to help with loss? You talked about life review. What else is there?
FW: Loss is not simply letting go, it's not losing. It's really a transformation. If you lost your spouse, while you no longer have the day-to-day physical involvement, you never lose the past. You carry that with you. You transform your day-to-day experience to memories and to things that have become part of you. The important thing is to sort out what can be carried on and what kinds of continuity can be maintained in the face of loss. Rituals are a form of continuity. Holidays and rituals are tremendously important. Families having trouble with loss sometimes avoid family holidays. That's a big mistake.
PT: How do you find meaning for a life that was disappointing?
FW: Say your parent dies and this is a parent who abused you as a child. It's the coming to terms with life as it has been lived. We struggle to find some conclusion, especially where the relationship was complicated or disappointing.
Or a parent dies who you've never been able to forgive, even many years after the death. I usually help people distinguish between the behavior, the abuse, and the person. And I help them get to learn more about that parent as a person, and understand how he got to be the person who eventually ended up abusing his children, or being an alcoholic, or whatever. Adding dimension to the abusive parent is critical. The aim is to put compassion in place of only anger or bitterness. You have a choice about how to live in the present and the future.
PT: So you send someone on a research project. What other things can people do to help them through loss?
FW: First of all, turn to others. Most people report that what really matters are their near and dear. They spend more time with their children, with their loved ones. That's one of the most important things.
PT: Is this how loss clarifies the importance of relationships?
FW: Yes, but there's also something comforting about not being alone in your loss. We're so solution focused in our culture. Sometimes what people need is just someone who can sit there with them in their pain and let them have their pain.
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