Many Kenyans have lost loved ones to sickness, accidents and even terrorist attacks. Others suffer broken relationships and failed businesses.
Ex-serviceman turned clinical psychologist, Geoffrey Simon Kioko, says these years of of pent up grief should be resolved. He spoke to Star's John Muchangi.
Tell us about yourself
I'm a business and life coach, a clinical psychologist and also a grief recovery trainer for the Grief Recovery Institute in the US. I deal with people in business world and professionals going through changes in life and in business. I'm also a licensed pastor and run a ministry called the Word in Season Ministry.
What's the grief recovery programme about?
The grief recovery method or programme is a product of the Grief Recovery Institute based in California. It was started over 37 years ago by John James. He had lost his son and he tried all methods of therapy but couldn't come out of that situation. Somewhere in 1977, he started helping people. But the need became so much; he founded the institute and conducted research in this area and came up with the grief recovery method, which is an action-based programme to help resolve grief. The focus of grief recovery method is not to fix you, not to heal you, but to give you the tools and information you need so that you can use them at your will pace for your own recovery.
Why do you care so much about grief recovery? Most African communities have unique ways of dealing with grief and there's great social support too
Every society has these systems. The problem comes when the ways we use to deal with our problems are based on misinformation. I will give you an example. I come from a humble background and my father used to work far. When I finished form four, I was enlisted in the military. At some point, my father retired. But just when I thought I would now have time to interact with him, my father died. So the society came why their tools as usual. Things like, don't feel bad, be strong for young brothers. Some of the things we say to people who are grieving are actually misinformation. If you have malaria, I cannot take malaria medicine on your behalf. I cannot be strong for you. Things like, he's in a better place; the truth is, I wasn't grieving because he was in a bad place. I was grieving the loss. Research and experience across the world has proved that some of the ways people use to overcome grief are influenced by misinformation.
Kenyans continue to lose loved ones in instances like accidents and terrorist attacks, recently being the fallen soldiers in Somalia. Do you think we have a lot of unresolved grief in our society?
Yes. When we talk about grief, most people think about death. This is because societal misinformation has tagged grief on loss of someone through death. But grief is the normal and natural reaction to loss. If you're grieving, you re not sick, you're not having a clinical or a pathological condition. For those who come from religious divide, we see Jesus grieving the death of Lazarus. Many times we are told, don't grief the Holy Spirit. That means even God goes through emotions - it's normal, it's natural. But our society teaches us not to feel bad, to try to replace the loss. For instance, if a young man is heartbroken in a relationship, they are told, don't worry, there are many fish in the ocean or birds in the air. We are good at coaching people how not to feel bad. Until we can accept that feeling bad is a natural response to loss, then we may not be able to resolve our grief. People are also losing in other areas. When economy goes down, people lose businesses. Young people are losing in their romantic relationships, people are losing in their exams. People are competing for awards and losing. Some of them try to commit suicide. When people lose and bury those feelings, it affects how they think.
How would one know they have unresolved grief?
There are many ways, but I will mention a few. One of them could be lack of sleep. There is also roller-coaster of emotions. In counseling we talk about stages. But grief doesn't really have stages, it's a roller-coaster. It goes from disbelief that someone has died, to anger, to fear. Chief among all these feelings is fear. Someone cuts you across as you drive in town, the first thing you do before getting angry is fear – oh, that man would have killed me. Then you get angry and start shouting at them. You may also find yourself very sensitive to issues especially relating to your type of loss. Third, sometimes you find your life is shutting down slowly; you're not going for anything. Imagine a car that had wheels but those wheels have been taken off. I have been there, I've been a man with education but could not take his life forward with anything. You have seen this in society, very educated people who have no plan or strategy for life. They are just there. They say there are no jobs, yet people are graduating and employing themselves or getting employed. The other way is when people find themselves responding to life based on someone that died or someone they lost. For example, someone had an abusive father who died. Every time a man is mentioned, or when the boss is a man who probably talks or behaves like their dad, it ruffles those feelings. All over a sudden you find yourself not dealing with your boss but with that person you are grieving or that relationship you're grieving.
Many deaths, for instance in battle zone, are sudden and are probably more difficult to deal with
Yes, you will grieve more if, for instance, the person died before you could tell them something. We call it undelivered communication. If someone did something good to you and they died in a car crash before you could appreciate them, you find yourself asking, why you didn't just walk up to them and thank them before they left. Or you had issues with someone and you never told them sorry. Young people might want to say, my dad died before I could say sorry for my behaviour. All these build up accumulated grief. The more you keep losing in life, the more you accumulate your grief. It reaches a place you cannot move any more. That's why you find good people, very bright, educated professionals just grinding to a halt. He's not drinking, not taking drugs, in fact goes to church, and that could be it.
What happens if someone is at this stage and does not get help
If you're not going for therapy or consulting with a mental health professional, a therapist or counsellor, you can't move forward and many people get into addictions. People try to medicate themselves to feel good and one of the ways is through addictions.
When we talk of addictions, what mostly comes to mind are drugs and alcohol. But you'll be shocked. Some people are addicted to food. USA every year has more than 250,000 food-related deaths. Think of things like retail therapy – shopping. Many people like ladies would just want to go out shopping to deal with a bad thing. Young people would also result in illicit sex. They are not doing it for money or anything. They just want to feel good. So before we step out and judge everyone, it is good to look at the underlying issues.
They say time heals. Does it?
Time doesn't heal. I want to give you an example. If your car gets a flat tire and you say, I'm gonna give it time, the car will be well with time. If you stay there for a day, a week or a month, your car will stay the same or get worse. Time does not heal. What heals is what you do in the course of that time. What people call healing is that with time your mind tends to push it back, it's stored deep inside you, it's like building up a volcano. At some point something very small thing will prick that volcano and it will erupt. That's why you see some people over-sensitive for nothing. People want to fight over nothing, because they have gone through unfair treatment over a long time and they feel this is just another one.
How do we deal with unresolved grief?
The first thing is to giving grievers the right information. We also give them the right tools. Thirdly, we give them an environment where they can be treated with dignity. I think our society doesn't treat grievers with dignity. For example if you start crying in your own parents' burial, what do people do, they hide you. You're doing something shameful. This is not treating that person with dignity. So what should someone do when their spouse, parent or friend dies? They should cry, they should be offered that environment. An environment where they can process their grief with dignity, without being judged, compared or diminished. Older widows will tell younger widows, you're not badly off, you can get married again. Or the young widows will tell the older widows, you're used to it, you have experience living without a husband. People shouldn't compare or diminish others. Fourthly, we guide them through small steps to help them recover at their own speed or pace. In grief recovery we do not have time limits, like you should feel better after two weeks. All relationships are unique, people are different, our experiences are different. But this is not a programme where you depend on a therapist for the rest of your life or anytime you lose. You get skills you can use on your own. You went to driving school, they gave you the skills you need to drive a car. So when you need to drive a car you do not have to call the driving school.
Are these skills necessary only for people who are grieving?
Everybody needs to know how to deal with grief in the right way.
Actually in our programme we have journalists, military chaplains, police offers, doctors, it's everyone. For instance, people often underestimate the work policemen do. They go collect dead bodies, they take them to mortuaries, go to armed conflicts, they deal with all manner of problems. Politicians on the other hand, need to know how to deal with a competitor who lost against them; the one who lost needs to know how to cope. We have business people who lost in business and their lives were never the same again.
In your office, grief can be costly if you don't know how to deal with it because it slows people down. In US the economy loses between $2.2 – 2.7 billion (Sh220bn-Sh270 billion) annually due to grief. This is something we should give attention to. Grief is so common with us in Africa but we tend to give it short term solutions. During to post-election violence of 2008, I dealt with more than 2,500 internally displaced people. One of them asked me what the government would achieve even if it gave gave each Sh20 million. “What is Sh20 million to a grieving person? You have seen your daughter or wife raped and just to make you feel better you give that person Sh20 million,” he said.