When Guilt Is Really Grief
By: Megan Brewer, LMHC When Guilt Is Really Grief Grief and guilt can blend together inside of us when we lose someone or something important to us, particularly when we lose a person and the relationship with the person was complicated. We can sometimes replace the painful feelings of loss (grief) with thinking about things we could have done differently (guilt) to feel the loss less intensely and gain some sense of control over emotions that feel out of control. What Is Grief? Psychiatrist Curt Thompson defines grief like this: “ Grief is our emotional inflammatory response to loss. It is an interpersonal neurobiological event with which we react when we are deprived of something—anything—to which we have a significant emotional attachment, to which we have ascribed salient meaning. It could be a relationship. An object. An event or experience. A job, a title, a savings account, an expectation or hope.” [1] Grief is our heart’s natural response to losing something t