By Patricia Klimek and Adam Fischer, The Willow Team, Austria

To explore the current state of grief support, this article emphasizes the importance of memories and the need for funeral homes to expand their offerings beyond organizational tasks. By incorporating insights from funeral homes and psychologists, it highlights innovative ways to support grieving families emotionally and underscores the significant role of preserving memories in the recovery process.

The Struggle with Grief 

When a loved one passes away, families often face overwhelming administrative tasks. “We try to relieve the bereaved of as many burdensome organizational tasks as possible. However, especially once the funeral service is planned and organized, the loss often becomes very apparent to the bereaved.” describes Sonja Dietl from Bestattung Wien. While traditional services end with the funeral, many funeral homes like Bestattung Wien cooperate with support associations and psychologists to navigate their grief. “It is important to provide the appropriate and suitable framework for families – grief has many faces.” Mrs. Dietl adds. 

Funeral home staff see the significant impact on clients' mental state and must adapt to these challenges. David Wagner, head of sales at Bestattung Himmelblau, shares, “Organizing a funeral has sensitive emotional components impacting both families and staff. For our staff, we offer targeted training and anonymized psychological support. However, for the families, our services currently focus only on operational support.” 

“Once the ceremony is over, families feel lost and lack guidance. Funeral services lack solutions to provide long-term support,” adds Philippe Lemonaca (VP European Federation of Living with Grief). Funeral homes largely lack tools for ongoing support, focusing mainly on logistical rather than emotional assistance. To this Mr. Wagner noted, "Until the funeral, customers are in grief but function due to many tasks they have to perform. The more intense part of the grieving process only starts after the funeral, when we no longer have touchpoints with clients." 

To understand how to best help families, the grieving process and remedies suggested by psychologists are worth exploring. 

Would you like to learn more?
Read the article in the autumn issue of THANOS magazine - you can read online at pages 16-17