Sunday, February 28, 2010

Counseling for the guilty

From today's Dear Abby:
DEAR ABBY: I lost my mom to cancer several months ago. She made my sister and me promise not to let her die in a hospital, ... Mom died three hours after we made our decision.

We also promised to bury her because she didn't want cremation. ...

Abby, Mom had two wishes at the end of her life, and I wasn't able to fulfill either one. ...

Now I'm having second thoughts. Was I wrong? Should you grant your parents their final wishes? I'm seeing a counselor about this, but would like your thoughts. ...

DEAR GRIEVING: ... You have done nothing wrong. Talking about this with your therapist is the surest way to work it through.
I am beginning to believe that counseling exists only to excuse bad behavior. The idea is that she will stop feeling guilty if some counselor tells her over and over again that she did nothing wrong.

1 comment:

JoAnn from IL said...

Why in the world would she have been "unable" to fulfill her mom's request to be buried? As far as I know, only one state in the union discourages burials (Louisiana) because of the high water table. I agree with you. Counselors just serve to make people feel better for the wrong and bad choices they have made that they should have known better about.