Andy Langford
Andy Langford is the Clinical Director for Cruse Bereavement Care - the largest bereavement charity in the UK. Andy was Cruse’s senior major incident responder for the Manchester b...
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Who are you?
Hi there. My name is Andy Langford. I'm clinical director for Cruise Bereavement Support. I've also been a therapist for over 20 years now, working in the area of grief and bereavement, and I'm a researcher with the Open University looking specifically at bereavement. It's a pleasure to be here today, so please do come and ask me a question about grief.
What is grief?
So very broadly, grief is the experience we have as a result of a loss that is significant to us. Now, cruise, we talk a lot with people about the loss of someone close, but you can experience grief through the loss of an animal, through the loss of something significant in your life, like a job or a relationship. But broadly, grief is that experience as a result of the loss, and that can be involving your emotions, how you think your body works even, and also what that causes you to behave. So it can be really broad.
What is Cruse Bereavement Support's role and how can it help with grief?
So Cruise bereavement support has been around for just over 60 years, really. And what we do is we provide a safe space for people to talk about when they're grieving about those feelings, about those thoughts, how their experience in it bodily about other grief affects the relationships that they're having, and ultimately how they're going to be able to cope and lead their life whilst also remembering the person who they've loved and who they've lost.