Bereavement experiences often come accompanied with a journey of chronic illness, the deep relationships with carers and the conflicting messages society presents about memories.

My particular therapeutic positioning is informed through the methods of Narrative Therapy/Practice. We, as ‘interpreting beings’, are naturally inclined to assign meaning to experiences that happen across a time-line, and in doing so create a dominant story within our lives. When that assigned meaning is not truly our own, we become recruited into the expectations of others, community, dominant cultural/colonial paradigms and systems of administration. How we are allowed to grieve, how long we are given to grieve, what we are ‘permitted’ to remember and what is ‘encouraged’ to be forgotten (e.g. letting go / moving on / getting over it) can cause considerable distress when this does not align with what we value individually.

The Narrative approach encourages these hidden ‘second stories’ - the ones we truly value, to be reclaimed and retold through Remembering and Reauthoring practices. This is not just something relevant to those we love who have passed, but to those who still exist in our lives today. They act in ways and hold folk-knowledge that can provide for us resilience and strengths.

When enshrined within memory and honoured in ways relevant to us, it impacts our lives now and can continue to effect us positively as those closest to us transition from this existence.​​