Jeff Levy, LCSW
(originally posted on Branching Out: The Live Oak Blog, October 2014)

While meeting with one of my clients this week, we came upon the realization that her husband had died three years ago almost to the day.  This wasn’t how we began our conversation.  When we settled into our respective chairs, she started the session by sharing a general sense of sadness and she wasn’t sure where it was coming from.
 
That’s not the first time I’ve had an experience like that.  There have been other times over the years when someone will share feelings of sadness or grief and there is not anything in particular to which they can be attached.  For some of us, these feelings might be part of a larger history of depression.  At other times, however, we may have a dim or unconscious awareness that our distress is attached to something, but we can’t identify the exact source.

Jeff Levy, LCSW
(originally posted on Branching Out: The Live Oak Blog, June 2014)

Last week in the graduate social work class I am teaching, we had a conversation arise about whether it was acceptable to offer a client a box of Kleenex when they are crying.  One supervisor had told a student not to offer Kleenex because in an implicit way, it conveyed that crying was not ok, or at a minimum, the crying should stop. Another student shared she had received the opposite instruction, and that the offering of Kleenex displayed an empathic connection.  So many considerations for the small act of pushing a Kleenex box closer to a client.
 
Every time I teach a graduate course in social work, the topic of crying during sessions comes up.  In most instances, however, it’s not about what to do when clients cry that people want to talk about.  My students, and many of the therapists I supervise or with whom I consult, want to know what to do when they are crying—or how to handle it if a time arises when they find themselves crying in front of a client or with a client.

Jeff Levy, LCSW
(originally posted on Branching Out: The Live Oak Blog, May 2014)

In reviewing these past several months of blog posts, I realized that I have mentioned both my mother and father a number of times, often referring to their old age or their deaths, which occurred nine and seven years ago respectively.  I began to think more about how present they are in my life, despite their physical absence.
 
I think about them often and talk about them with my partner and friends.  Still, even after years have past, there are times when I speak of them and I notice my throat close slightly and my eyes blink in a way that I hope is not too noticeable to others.  I’m much better able to remember funny stories, habits, and events.  But still, there is grief.  Sometimes I can predict it like when I look at old pictures, but other times it creeps in unexpectedly.

Jeff Levy, LCSW
(originally posted on Branching Out:  The Live Oak Blog, January 2014)

After a crisis, illness, or other difficult life events, many people reach out to me to talk about their experience.  One of the first questions I am often asked is:  “When will life get back to normal again”?
 
We all have that desire to return to what is familiar; to once again find the rhythms of our lives “before”.  We look at returning to that “normal” as a sign that we have recovered and can return to life as it was.  We can release the breath we have been holding.  Everything will be ok.  Normal.