Grief therapy for relatives of persons with serious mental illness

Grief is a key reaction experienced by many relatives of persons with serious mental illness. Parents, spouses, and children may endure great longing for the quality of their former relationship with the ill person, as well as grief over dashed hopes and aspirations. The author describes a format for grief therapy for relatives of persons with serious mental illness that is based on four tasks of mourning: making the loss real, expressing overt and latent affect, accommodating to the loss through relationships other than that with the mentally ill person. Grief therapy is a potentially appropriate complement to existing approaches for family members, such as psychoeducation.