LOSS, BEREAVEMENT AND COUNSELING STRATEGIES

Abstract

Life comes with various forms of uncertainties. Homo sapiens are faced with extremities of experiences, bringing diverse forms of emotion which vary from wins and gains that come with joy, gladness and elation. Other times, loss and bereavement become inevitable leading to emotions of sadness, gloom and grief. In the face of loss and bereavement, there is the need for appropriate counselling intervention in order to rehabilitate the affected and the relations of the victims of such losses to effectively adjust to their new realities. This paper is anchored on the counselling intervention strategies on the clients and relations of the victims of Dana Air crash in 2012. Dana Air Flight 0992 crashed on the 3rd of June 2012 in Lagos, Nigeria, killing all 153 passengers on board and six on land. The ripple effect of this calamity has become a major psychological case for counseling psychologists and medical/psychiatric social workers in the bid to intervene by offering strategic and effective counseling services to the concerned. These include the families of the victims, the airline users, the service providers, and the members of the community who were traumatized with the shock of the sudden crash. The implication of the intervention and counseling strategies called for the need for group psycho-education, grief counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy and the imperativeness of deploying psychological services in disasters and traumatic situations.