Une chronique de Margaret Wente (The Globe and Mail)
 
«Not long ago, we had other ways to cope with loss: community and casseroles. »
 

The Grief Industry
How much does crisis counselling help-or hurt?
by Jerome Groopman, The New Yorker
 
« Soon after the collapse of the World Trade Center, experts predicted that one out of five New Yorkers—some one and a half million people—would be traumatized by the tragedy and require psychological care. Within weeks, several thousand grief and crisis counsellors arrived in the city. Some were dispatched by charitable and religious organizations; many others worked for private companies that provide services to businesses following catastrophes. » (…)
 

« Perhaps the solution, Hyman said, is to drop the idea that “counselling” is necessary. He told me that the way we respond to individual or mass trauma should be guided by how we behave after the loss of a loved one. “What happens when someone in your family dies?” he said. “People make sure you take care of yourself, get enough sleep, don’t drink too much, have food.” Hyman pointed out the different rituals that various cultures have developed—shivah among Jews, for instance, and wakes among Catholics—which successfully support people through grief. “No one should have to tell anyone anything!” he said. “Particularly not in the scripted way of a debriefing.” The traumatized person should share what he wants with people he knows well: close friends, relatives, familiar clergy. “It’s so commonsensical,” Hyman said. “But the power of our social networks—they are what help people create a sense of meaning and safety in their lives.” »