When a pet dies the grief can be as painful as losing a family member

Talking to someone who's had the same experience can be helpful for many This is compounded by the lack of formal mourning rituals for pets in our culture Pain correlates to the quality of the relationship you had with the loved one Grief over death of a pet can be as severe as losing a human, psychologists say The death of a pet can be just as painful as the death of a family member, psychologists have claimed. While grief is widely acknowledged as one of the most painful experiences humans can go through, often people don't realise how profound the grief at losing a pet can be 'For people who live alone with a pet, and they don't have a person they're close to, they only have a pet they are close to, it's worse.' 'Any bereavement of a loved one is painful and the pain is in direct measure to the quality of the relationship we enjoyed with that loved one,' explained Ingrid, who is also the co-author of 'Bandit Burmilla Babies: Intimate conversations with a family of cats of love, pregnancy, birth, death, and separation. Pets offer us a 'loving connection to the natural world, and they are more honest than most humans in the expression of emotions' a psychologist said The consultant clinical psychologist went on to say that when it comes to dealing with feelings of guilt around replacing a dead companion animal, it is a 'cognitive exercise as much as an emotional one'.