Bereavement and Counselling in Bikita District:

Cultures Battling for Survival.

Abstract

Death is an essential end, and it comes when it resolves. This unfortunately does not remove sorrow over the loss of someone. This then calls for consolation from the others who do not experience the same loss at that time. The bereaved persons need support. In the western world, a professional counsellor goes to funerals with the sole purpose of helping the person impacted by loss to cope with it. The counsellor tries to give hope to the bereaved person. It is not rare to find the professional counsellor sitting down
with the bereaved giving some counselling. In an African setting, bereavement is carried out by villagers and a counsellor may be irrelevant and even his presence is often ignored. People feel that bereavement is carried out by nearly everyone in the village in one way or another. The main finding is that the villagers have an upper hand in the process of bereavement because they
have a long-lasting support system rather than that of the professional counsellor who does his job and goes away. Consequently, the physical support given by villagers is more than the psychological support given by the professional counsellor. At funerals people are observed to spend nights and days with the bereaved and bring food to the family something a counsellor could not do. The study recommends that people’s traditional ways of bereavement must be given the same prominence as that of professional
counsellors.