Dr. Ora Golan on Dealing with Loss

Hello Dr. Ora Golan, an expert in neutralizing emotional barriers from the Ora Golan Center, today we will talk about dealing with loss, dealing with grief.

I will tell about a father who came and said that he lost his son a decade ago in a car accident and since then he just has not functioned. He has left the workplace and he is unable to fit in with another job. He does casual jobs, now he works in a factory that does not require skill, and there he manages. The good relationship he had with his wife, they just started to get away from each other. He feels she does not understand him, she feels the same towards him, and they live in a kind of partnership together and so life goes on. All sorts of friends walked away. There are people he just feels he no longer has the patience for, there are people who have moved away because they could not be with him, and there are people he is torn to pieces when he hears stories about their children that they are the age he should be now.

Can we really go back to being happy after the loss of a son?

The goal is to allow a place for the joy of life. We can not cancel the loss. The goal of therapy is that we neutralize the emotional barriers. One of the things he said at the end of the treatment was that he returned to Simchat Chaim, and then he also brought his wife to the treatment. There were also tensions with the daughter, who is 26, and it was not clear because of who and what the reason was. They were able to find joy of life not at the expense of mourning. It is exactly on the same principle that when there is a first child then most loved in the world and when the second is born then one should turn exactly the same level of love to the second, not at the expense of the first. Here, too, the goal of therapy is to allow for joy of life, to have the legitimacy for joy of life, and that is not at the expense of mourning. He describes that society very much states that ‘if you have lost – you have to suffer, you have no legitimacy for the joy of life’. These messages blocked him.

Can the treatment also help other relatives, not just the first relative?

Yes. The treatment is very good in fact for the whole circle that revolves around the grief. Those who have experienced grief are good for them to do treatment after they have digested the grief, and not that they will come immediately after the grief, not in the initial stage. The circles of friends and family do not always know how to approach, what to say. Feeling uncomfortable and sometimes feeling guilty. When we neutralize the emotional barriers, those who have lost people are more open and allow themselves to be approached because sometimes they are the ones who keep people away, unintentionally. It manages them. They do not know how to act, and other people also feel that ‘being around a person who is experiencing but does not mean that I should take the grief and experience the grief, on the contrary, I should be the one who strengthens and gives the source of inspiration’. Knowing to stand next to people with grief and not feel like they are being dragged down with it.

We usually do not take people immediately after mourning, as soon as they have received the message. They need to digest it. I had a woman whose husband was killed. He always took care of bills and things like that, and she worried about how she would manage, what she would do, how she would manage. This is a relationship of over 20 years. Although she’s young enough on the one hand, she’s in her fifties, she’s young enough to start a new relationship, but she said ‘I do not know how to date, what to do, how to meet, how to start – I’m used to being with the same person.’

Once the emotional barriers are cleared, options suddenly open up. I do not tell her what to do; No instructions, no instruction. From the moment the checkpoints are cleared, which is very short; Only muscle resilience, text, gentle touch and imaging, open up options. Suddenly she found-through the internet, approached people and got to know her, through all sorts of encounters, she started dating. From there it starts and then rolls.