In the course of counselling, you may come across clients who foresee their own impending death and separation from their loved ones through different illness and dying trajectories.  This training will introduce meaning reconstruction perspectives to understand the meaning crisis and examine the resulting death anxiety and preparatory grief as experienced by those who are diagnosed with a terminal illness.  It will also equip you with meaning-oriented intervention tools to facilitate life review and enhancement of sense of self, as well as prepare these clients to face various challenges in the end-of-life phase and their eventual death. 

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• To examine the threat of terminal illness and its implications from a tripartite meaning reconstruction framework

• To address the pre-death anxiety and preparatory grief and unfinished business distress

• To implement meaning-oriented techniques to facilitate the quest for meaning in the face of terminal illness and impending death

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GRIEF COUNSELLING FUNDAMENTALS COVERED

• Terminal illness as a crisis of meaning

• Use of Virtual Dream Stories to explore death anxiety and preparatory grief

• Use of My Life Footprints to facilitate life review

• Spiritual distress and hope along the dying trajectory

• Use of Feast of My Life as a form of life celebration and legacy building

• Application of various assessment tools to examine different dimensions of preparatory grief, differentiate between palliative grief and depression, and evaluate dying patient’s sense of dignity