Word: rafted
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Gould says that Life Raft can fulfill needs that even those who are close to the bereaved participants cannot. Roommates, for example, might not know how to handle the situation, she says. "People who are bereaved," Gould says, "find that other people tune out. These people need not to be closed...
...Life Raft's weekly meetings follow no plan, nor do the discussions revolve only around death. "You need a place to go where you can just relax for a couple hours," the grad student says. "It's a place where you can cry or sit or can do whatever you want. We don't all talk about the person we've lost. We talk about our lives now, how our family situations have changed. I did not anticipate how much my family would change after the loss of one member...
...with many self-help groups, participants who arrive skeptical soon become comfortable as they come to know Life Raft's safe and undemanding atmosphere. The grad student says she has seen people brought to a meeting by a friend who, after being cautions at first, will "absolutely break down and find that the best thing they could possibly do was to let loose." When participants leave the meetings, she continues, "sometimes you feel relieved or sometimes you feel sadder than you did before...
There is a distinction between a self-help group like Life Raft and psychotherapy, Reisz explains. "Discussion comes out of what people have been experiencing that week. They come in wanting to talk. Sometimes they simply want to be there...
...Life Raft participants with varied problems have different needs. Reisz, who has been to a few meetings, describes how, when people suffer a death in the family, "they feel that people are avoiding them. It is important to be with other people, but [especially] people who are caring and sensitive...