'Even Though Death Is A Part Of Life, It's Still Taboo'

Author Julia Samuel talks to Anna Moore about her book on grief, and what she’s learnt over two decades as a bereavement counsellor

- Julia Samuel

Julia, 58, a qualified psychotherapist, started her work in 1994 as a bereavement counsellor for mothers whose babies had died. In her debut book, Grief Works, she discusses how to heal again after bereavement. Julia is married to Michael, and the couple have four grown-up children.

“Bereavement, psychotherapy, and talking about your feelings certainly wasn’t a world I knew anything about. My parents were from the generation who had fought in the Second World War and who had been brought up by survivors of the First. The way of surviving, for them, was to ‘get on and be strong’. My mother had lost both parents, her brother and sister by the age of 25. My father had also lost his father and brother young. None of this was ever discussed. Unconsciously, I think my career path must have been influenced by that.

I’d started my career fundraising for a pregnancy-research charity, which gave me an insight into all the things that can go wrong. From there, I began doing voluntary work for a mental-health charity. After 10 training sessions, I was sent off to help counsel a woman named Annie, whose daughter had died in a car crash on Christmas Eve. It was 29 years ago, but I’ll never forget it. I’d discovered the job I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

It was where I felt – and still feel – most alive. I loved the connection, the bridge of understanding between two people. There’s something about the enormity of bereavement. Helping someone rebuild their life feels very important.

Even though death is a part of life – and everyone will lose someone they love along the way – it’s still ‘taboo’. People don’t know how to respond when others are bereaved, and they don’t know if the way they feel is ‘normal’ when it happens to them.