y’s imminent arrival. With further work once the baby has arrived, as so not to put any unnecessary stress or upset upon C before the baby is born, it may be possible to encourage her to explore her own dual process of grief, alongside learning how to care for her baby with the support of the staff at the mother and baby unit. N has experienced a normal dual process of grieving as she has days where she is feeling low especially when it comes to significant events such as birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, but has expressed that she is more positive towards Christmas this year as she has her daughter and the new baby living at home with her, therefore she is able to focus on them rather than her losses. It is my intention to work alongside N to encourage her to explore her own dual process.

Therese Rando (1993) developed the six R’s of grieving and according to Rando, in order to achieve the six R’s, a person must Recognise the loss by acknowledging and understanding the death, React to the separation by experiencing the pain, give some form of expression to the psychological reaction of the loss and identify the secondary losses, Recollect the relationship with the loved one by remembering them realistically and re-experience the feelings they had for them, Relinquish the old attachments to the deceased, Re-adjust and adapt to their new world without forgetting their old one by developing a new relationship with the deceased, adopt new ways of being in the world without their loved one and form a new identity and finally Re-invest. Rando stated that complicated mourning is present whenever there is some compromise, distortion, or failure of one or more of the six “R” processes of mourning. It is clear from working with C that her grief is complicated and so some sort of compromise in one or more of the six R’s is probable, I don’t agree that one of the stages could be failed, it may just not be achieved in the way they are described. I feel that C recognises the loss, she has acknowledged her losses and understands why her surviving children were adopted, however, she blames herself, and was blamed by her ex-partner for the death of her baby but struggles to understand why her baby had Edwards Syndrome, which, ultimately, was the reason she chose to terminate her pregnancy, she has reacted to the separation by experiencing the pain of her losses, she has experienced normal grief reactions and psychological reactions to her losses by experiencing re-occurring nightmares and has identified the secondary loss being loss of identity as a mother as her children are no longer with her. She has begun to recollect the relationships she had with her surviving children, but feels that s