Grief Guys

This idea is in development, so I'll probably be making additions to this post over time, which I'll try to remember to note here at the top.

20220314 13:32 initial posting

20220314 17:20 additional details of what Grief Guys might do and noting potential gender problems

20220315 03:30 reduce direct home involvement, and "to do list generation" as "therapeutic" activity

20220315 17:17 added literature references

20220319 offshoot post guide to comforting bereaved, additions regarding churches and palliative care

20221201 more development of the idea

20221220 introduction and articulation

20230124 Materials and resources

There's a couple of things led up to this.  One of the guys from church invited me to a regular get-together at an A&W for coffee every week.  (I tend to refer to it as OGCM: Old Guys Coffee Morning.  As a Certified Old Person, who has recently had A Fall, I figure I qualify.)  Two of the guys have also had recent losses.  When we talk about the death admin and costs and such, we immediately recognize and sympathize with the problems.  The other guys in the group are somewhat uncomfortable when we do, and they don't fully understand.  (That's fairly common with grief.)

The other thing is that all the grief counselling, grief groups, and grief so forth almost invariably and solely involve women.  Guys seem to be missing from the grief landscape.

One of the reasons for this is probably that guys don't talk.  Well, actually, guys don't *think* they talk.  Guys have this (generally mistaken) image of themselves as the strong, silent types.  (I can recall my baby brother, during the period after Dad's Surgery [long story, some other time], writing on the whiteboard outside the social workers' office, where you were supposed to request appointments, "I don't want to talk about it."  Well, *HE* thought it was funny.)  OGCM definitely proves that guys talk.  Guys, rather infamously, "mansplain" (which, by definition, nobody needs).  It's actually rather easy to get guys to talk.  All you have to do is sit there and listen, without speaking yourself.  (The police know this, and use it very effectively.)

But guys do not like to talk on command.  Guys do not like taking turns around the circle.  (If talking doesn't involve competition, guys are less interested  :-)  Guys do not like newage blank verse poetry to "set the scene."  Guys are not very comfortable with all that, so they generally simply choose not to participate.  (Besides, asking for help isn't "manly.")

So, I propose something different for guys who have lost someone or something.

Grief Guys.

Guys doing what guys do best.  Unwarranted interference, and fixing things.

Now part of the Grief Guys idea is providing for a bit of a "community" of and for guys who have lost someone or something.  But I probably should find another word to use there, because guys don't really understand community, as much as they need it.  "Group" is probably OK.  It would be even better if we could make it into a lodge or order or something with robes and secret handshakes, because guys *really* go for that sort of stuff, but maybe some future Grief Guy can take it on as a task.

Because a second part of the Grief Guys idea is to help yourself by helping others.  Initially the Grief Guys would move in and help, but, as the Borg would say, you will be assimilated.  The bereaved will become one of the Grief Guys.

While there are male grief counsellors, this is not that.  This is guys who have, themselves, had a loss, and are helping others.  This is not, primarily, counselling.  Guys tend to resent that.  So, the first rule of Grief Guys counselling is, you don't offer counselling.  You don't offer advice.  If you're not doing anything else, you just listen.  (This is going to be hard to be *really* hard for a lot of guys, I know.)  Asking questions is allowed, but no pointed questions, just questions to obtain information.  If somebody *asks* for advice, you can answer, specifically, what they asked for.  You don't go beyond that.  If someone *does* want counselling, the Grief Guys can give them the number to call to get in touch with counsellors.

(Another point mentioned by grief counsellors in relation to an early version of this idea is that there needs to be involvement from palliative care specialists.)

So, what do Grief Guys do?  This is primarily based on the old community model of grieving and bereavement, where the community invades the house and takes over.  Thinking of the situation of a guy who has (most often) lost his wife, then the Grief Guys would come in with to-do lists.  Clean the bathrooms.  Take out the garbage.  Have the kids been fed?  If not, feed the kids.  Do you want the kids to go to school (and do they want to)?  Then get the kids to school.  (With lunches.)  (And check in with the school office.)

(Going into the home, of course, is an issue, and may be difficult as a central theme of this project.  Dealing directly with vulnerable people requires training, safeguards, and protections like criminal record checks.  However, one of the grief counsellors, in responding to an initial version of this idea, noted that involving churches may provide us with a shortcut.  Churches already have a tacit social contract with their members that provides for more or less direct contact with the homes and families.  Having Grief Guys work alongside, and in cooperation with, churches could provide an entry level for this type of direct activity.  In any case, churches generally have active pastoral care expertise, and it would be good to work with churches in this area and obtain assistance, input, and feedback from them, as well as supporting pastoral care activities that the churches may already be doing or wanting to be involved in.)

Have you got a will?  Where is it?  Where's the office?  Go through the filing.  Do you have a safe deposit box?  Call the bank and make an appointment.  Take the bereaved to the bank appointment.  Have you contacted Canada Revenue Agency?  Deputize someone to call CRA and hold on the line listening to the stupid "music on hold" until someone answers.  Have you called friends and family?  Where's the phone list/contact list on your cell phone?  Deputize someone to start calling.  If someone wants to talk to you, check first that you're OK, then pass the phone over.

Guys are OK with to do lists.

We can even have to do lists for *later* in the process.  A month later, six months later, check in and see that the kids are still getting off to school and that everything CRA wants is done.  Check in and sit and listen.  Even if the bereaved doesn't want to talk.  That happens.

The thing is, Grief Guys is kind of an open ended idea.  Help yourself by helping others.  And that help may vary widely.  There are a lot of bereaved out there, so there will be a lot of different skill sets.  Some are going to be handymen.  Some are house husbands.  Some are managers.  There are going to be doctors and lawyers and maybe an Indian Chief or two.  Some are going to help grieving fathers get the kids off to school on time in the mornings.  Some may go into activism to reduce the costs of funerals and memorial services.  Some may be running and managing Grief Guys.  (Which, if it works, may become a larger affair.)  Some may lobby the government to make declaring your loved one dead a "one stop at a Service Canada office" affair.

(I have stressed bereaved husbands and fathers up until now.  I do not want to say that Grief Guys would never help widows.  Indeed, since the "intuitive/instrumental" continuum is not a strictly gender-based dichotomy, it is possible that some women may become Grief Guys.  However, I do foresee that having newly bereaved husbands helping out newly widowed wives could lead to problems especially with the newly grieving being in danger of entering into inappropriate relationships.  Having Grief Guys helping women definitely needs detailed protections in place, such as ensuring that female volunteers always accompany Grief Guys when assisting in a newly male-less home.)

Germinating and crystalizing an idea like this "in public" is a difficult job.  Having gone through two iterations of the idea, I realize that what I am foreseeing and describing as the activity of the Grief Guys is a fair ways down the road.  Direct involvement in the home, and particularly with children, is a potentially touchy issue, and would probably require at least basic criminal record checks, and likely other types of safeguards and controls.

A much earlier activity, and one that will likely be an ongoing mainstay of the process, is the generation of the to do lists.  This activity would be therapeutic in and of itself.  The "task analysis" of creating the lists would require discussion, by the bereaved who are involved with Grief Guys, in considering and recounting issues where they felt that they needed help.  This type of discussion, for guys, is much more likely to be acceptable, and even welcome, when in the context of a "job" that needs to be done in order to help others.  Getting the bereaved to recount what they feel, and what they need, is one of the mainstays of grief counselling.  It provides information, for the counsellor, on the emotional state of the bereaved, and it generally allows and encourages the bereaved to clarify what they are actually feeling and why.  "Task analysis" sessions would allow and encourage guys, in the context of providing assistance to others, to recount, consider, and analyze their feelings during bereavement, and any ways in which they "felt" unequal to the job or process, and ways in which they would have liked and appreciated help.  (A professional counsellor should be part of all such task analysis sessions, ostensibly to provide advice and direction on what can, should, or can't be added to the to do lists, and also to note emotional or personal problems that become evident during the discussions.)  The refinement of the to do lists would be an ongoing part of the Grief Guys activities.  The lists themselves would have to be kept up to date as social resources evolve, come into being, or go out of date, and with new input from the newly bereaved who are joining the process.  The lists would also be refined with feedback from those Grief Guys who are actively helping others, and reporting on what works, what is helpful to others, and what isn't.  Thus the task analysis sessions would be an integral and constant part of the process.

OK, this is a work in progress ...

I recall, back following "9/11," some magazine article that was noting the hugely over-the-top memorials that the Americans were doing, and commented that "if Americans are going to grieve, they are going to kick ass in the grieving department."  So, that's kind of me.  Gloria is dead, and I have to deal with it, so I'm dealing with it.  I am getting on with the death admin and expenses, but I'm also noting and following everything I've ever heard about what you need to do after a loss.  I'm getting out to the community, like to church and to the seniors centre.  I'm meeting people.  I'm also taking grief counselling, of various types, to try to ensure that I'm having someone else check on whether I'm doing it wrong.  But, as a life-long systems analyst, when I see something missing in the process, I look for a fix.  Guys aren't part of the grief landscape, so how do we fix that?

I am definitely needing some help and feedback on this idea.

Literature search:

https://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/exc_0816.shtml

stoicism and "instrumental" expression of grief

"working through" allows the bereaved to adapt to the world in the absence of their loved one while maximizing social support networks and reinvesting in other relationships and meaningful activities

https://mygriefandloss.org/continuum-of-grief

intuitive vs instrumental grief, dissonant grief

https://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/grief-counseling-doka

interview with Kenneth Doka, styles of grieving