Creative Practices for Counseling the Bereaved - A 3-day Workshop

Prof. Drs. Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD

University of Memphis, USA

As contemporary models of bereavement have become more nuanced and empirically informed, so too have the practices available to grief counselors and therapists.  This three-day workshop offers in-depth training in several of these techniques, nesting them both within the therapy relationship and in the context of current theories and research that provide flexible frameworks for intervention.  Making extensive use of actual clinical videos as well as how-to instruction in the use a numerous therapeutic tools, we will discuss and practice several methods for helping clients integrate the reality of the loss into the ongoing story of their lives, while also reconstructing their continuing bond to their loved one.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:

Robert A. Neimeyer, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, where he also maintains an active clinical practice. Since completing his doctoral training at the University of Nebraska in 1982, he has published 30 books, including Techniques of Grief Therapy:  Creative Practices for Counseling the Bereaved and Grief and the Expressive Arts:  Practices for Creating Meaning (both with Routledge), and serves as Editor of the journal Death Studies. The author of nearly 500 articles and book chapters, he is currently working to advance a more adequate theory of grieving as a meaning-making process, both in his published work and through his frequent professional workshops for national and international audiences.  The recipient of the MISS Foundation’s Phoenix Award:  Rising to the Service of Humanity, Neimeyer served as Chair of the International Work Group for Death, Dying, & Bereavement and President of the Association for Death Education and Counseling.  In recognition of his scholarly contributions, he has been granted the Eminent Faculty Award by the University of Memphis, made a Fellow of the Clinical Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, and given Lifetime Achievement Awards by both the Association for Death Education and Counseling and the International Network on Personal Meaning.

DAY 1: MODELS OF MOURNING AND PROCESSING THE EVENT STORY OF THE DEATH

Beginning with a discussion of grieving in both its adaptive and complicated forms, we will consider the relevance of both a meaning reconstruction and a dual process model to clinical assessment and intervention, highlighting challenges in bereavement such as the search for significance in tragic loss and emotion regulation through “dosing” of exposure to grief.  Turning to therapy, we then consider the power of presence as a fundamental dimension of the therapeutic “holding environment,” and discuss how we can quickly assess our clients’ needs, particularly when they struggle with preoccupying and prolonged grief symptomatology.  We will then discuss how to foster a safe relational container for a “restorative re-telling” of the loss experience, illustrating this trauma-informed practice with a detailed case study.  Drawing on clinical videos of clients contending with losses through cancer, sudden accident and suicide, we will learn to listen between the lines of the stories clients tell themselves and others about the death to grasp more fully the unvoiced meaning of their grief, and how we can help them integrate the event story of the death into the larger narrative of their lives.  Participants should conclude the session with sharpened skills for clinical assessment, a clearer appreciation for the challenge to meaning and spiritualty associated with violent death bereavement, and an expanded toolbox for using metaphor, body work and a variety of narrative procedures for helping clients make sense of the loss and their response to it.

Learning outcomes:

• Outline two major models for conceptualizing grief and its complications

• Distinguish between “presence” and “absence” in the process of therapy

• Recognize empirical risk factors associated with complicated grief reactions

• Implement restorative retelling and situational revisiting procedures for mastering the event story of the loss

• Differentiate between forms of directed journaling that foster self-immersion and self-distancing to modulate emotions evoked by the death

• Describe narrative techniques for accommodating loss in literal and figurative ways into the changed narrative of the client’s life

Schedule:

09:30-10:30  The Power of Presence:  Orienting to Client Needs and Resources

10:30-10:45   Break

10:45-12:15   Restorative Retelling:  Mastering the Narrative of the Death

12:15-13:15   Lunch

13:15-14:45    Virtual Dream Stories:  Exploring Metaphoric Meanings of Grief

14:45-15:00   Break

15:00-17:00   Chapters of Our Lives:  Rewriting Stories of Loss

DAY 2: ACCESSING THE BACK STORY OF THE RELATIONSHIP

Death may end a life, but not necessarily a relationship.  Drawing on attachment-informed and two-track models of bereavement, we will begin by considering grieving as a process of reconstructing rather than relinquishing our bonds with those who have died, and the circumstances that can interfere with this natural process.  Clinical videos bearing on the death of parents, children and spouses will sensitize participants to various impediments to revisiting and reorganizing the “back story” of the ongoing relationship with the deceased, as well as to several techniques that can help move such work forward.  Creative narrative methods will be presented and practiced for re-introducing the deceased into the social and psychological world of the bereaved, fostering a sustaining sense of connection and alliance with the loved one in embracing a changed future.  Participants will leave with several tools for invoking the deceased as a helpful partner in adapting to loss, and drawing on a more secure bond with the loved one in rewriting future chapters in their ongoing life story.  

Learning outcomes:

• Identify dimensions of insecure attachment that complicate adaptation to the death

• Distinguish between healthy and unhealthy features of continuing bonds with the deceased

• Outline metaphoric and body-oriented procedures for exploring the sensed meanings of the client’s connection to the loved one

• Practice two techniques for consolidating a constructive bond with the deceased as the client transitions toward a changed future

• Direct experiential work to access and restructure problematic emotions linked to the loss and its aftermath

Schedule:

09:30-10:30   Continuing Bonds:  Tracking Through Bereavement

10:30-10:45   Break

10:45-12:15   Remembering Conversations:  Re-introducing the Deceased

12:15-13:15   Lunch

13:15-14:45   Working with the Body:  Analogical Listening

14:45-15:00   Break

15:00-17:00   Passed and Present:  The Life Imprint

DAY 3: ADDRESSING UNFINISHED BUSINESS AND THE IMMUNITY OF CHANGE

Adaptation to the loss of significant persons can be complicated not only by the tragic or traumatic circumstances of their death and our insecurity and longing in their absence, but also by circumstances intrinsic to our relationship with them.  In this workshop we will begin by considering evidence for the role of “unfinished business” in the form of unaddressed, unresolved relationship issues with the deceased in blocking adaptation to bereavement. Drawing on emotion-focused therapy and dialogical self models, we then will explore through clinical video, instruction, and experiential practice how to facilitate imaginal conversations between the living and dead that help resolve past hurts, regrets, and the need for forgiveness or reassertion of boundaries.  Finally, we will explore the relevance of coherence therapy procedures as we turn attention to “pro-symptom positions” that complicate grieving, in the form of substantially non-conscious commitments that compete with the client’s conscious agenda to accept the loss and respond adaptively to the changed world.  Using a thoroughly experiential, non-interpretive method, our goal will be to reveal and reconstruct the implicit meanings of the client’s specific suffering that establish his or her immunity to change, and set the stage for rapid transformation.

Learning outcomes:

• Recognize the relevance of emotion-focused chair work at specific moments of the therapy process

• Choreograph imaginal dialogues that address unfinished relationship issues between the client and the deceased

• Distinguish between anti-symptom and pro-symptom stances and describe their relevance for grief therapy

• Practice overt statement and incomplete sentence techniques for revealing the emotional truth of the problem or symptom

• Use imagery and metaphor to capture implicit meanings of the client’s position and foster their fuller integration

Schedule:

09:30-10:30   Identifying Marker:  The Where and When of Intervention

10:30-10:45   Break

10:45-12:15   Imaginal Dialogue:  Re-opening Conversations Closed by Death

12:15-13:15   Lunch

31:15-14:45   Encountering Resistance:  Working with Pro-symptom Positions

14:45-15:00   Break

15:00-17:00   Fostering Transformation:  Opening to Change