Grief is the pain for the life that the other has lost and for the suffering they may have endured; it is the distress caused by the absence of the person and by the void that such absence introduces into one’s existence. It is the experience of loneliness, despair, anger, anxiety, and guilt, together with the need for comfort and the necessity of reorganizing one’s daily life. It entails the loss of meaning brought about by the event, the arduous search for a sense of what has occurred, and often the very difficulty of fully acknowledging its reality. Taken together, these elements delineate the complexity of grief as a fundamental human experience.
Those who remain need to confront their inner experiences, to express them, to share them, and to work through them. This is not always achievable. Various factors may hinder the course of a gradual process of acceptance of the loss due to the death of a loved one, including the nature of the bond and relationship with the deceased, the history of that relationship, the loved one’s age at the time of death, the circumstances of the death, the survivor’s affective style, their view of death, and other related factors.
Today, a new psychotherapeutic procedure is available for addressing the profound pain that follows the death of a loved one: Reparative Experience-Based Grief Therapy (REGT).
This model of intervention developed from IADC Therapy and is grounded in the integration of clinical practice, empirical research, and theoretical reflection.
REGT is not conceived as a standardized protocol but rather as a clinical model characterized by a defined structure and, at the same time, a high degree of flexibility. It is based on a methodological framework that, precisely by virtue of its openness, allows respect for the individual’s uniqueness and for the complexity of the experience of loss. From this perspective, REGT is designed to facilitate a mental state of receptivity through which multisensory experiences of reunion may emerge. These Emergent Post-Loss Experiences (EPLEs) represent transformative events capable of exerting a reparative function with respect to the traumatic rupture produced by the loss. They also contribute to the development of cognitive configurations and value orientations that restore meaning to existence.
Affinché questa forma di psicoterapia conduca all’esperienza curativa occorrono di norma poche sedute. Alcune di esse, soprattutto all’inizio, possono avere una durata di due ore invece che, come avviene di norma nella psicoterapia, di un’ora sola. Il numero effettivo di sedute necessarie può variare da persona a persona. La procedura della REGT può essere attuata da sola oppure venire integrata in un trattamento psicoterapeutico più ampio. Il costo orario delle sedute riflette in generale quello della psicoterapia.
This therapeutic model does not promise predetermined outcomes.
Each therapeutic process is unique and depends on multiple individual factors. In research and clinical observation contexts, the emergence of a reparative experience has been observed in a significant proportion of the cases examined; however, this does not allow for individual predictions nor does it provide guarantees of outcome.
REGT is an evolving model, open to interdisciplinary dialogue and critical scrutiny. Its development takes place within a clinical and research community oriented toward scientific and ethical responsibility.