Syllabus For The Subject Grief and Bereavement

 GRIEF AND BEREAVEMENT

Objectives:

ü Delve into the personal grieving experiences of the trainee counselees and have them determine suitable coping mechanisms to deal with their own grief.

ü Dealing with different areas of counselling needs

ü Dealing with professional caretakers and family caregivers

Practical Orientation, Session I PREPATORY SESSION – Mission is life and self actualization

Death brings about a sense of the mortality of each individual. Reflections are on the mission one feels one has in life. The Inventory of Self Actualization (ISAC) helps the counselor trainee to explore his/ her personal level of self-actualization in the content of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchical needs.

Practical Orientation II, Session II Writing an imagined obituary of oneself

This is writing an obituary about self at an imagined age of dying. The intent once again is to have a sense of history of self as well as to give purpose to living. Sharing is done on the various aspects of life considered and reflections on where each one thinks he/she is at the moment of their lives. There is also a pairing arranged so that each one writes an obituary of the other person, as the writer believes the facts to be. The purpose is for each individual to have a sense of how he/she comes across and the impact they are making on others.

To further reinforce this reflection on sense of the self the individual is asked to write just one word that would best describe him/ her on the tombstone

Practical Orientation III, Session III Facing the inevitability of death

Dying is about cutting off links with living others. The counselor trainee is asked to imagine his/ her passing away. He/she will however write farewell letters to the following

a) Individual family members

b) Two close friends

c) An undesirable person, or enemy

The trainees can choose to give these letters to those written to or not. The purpose is to go within themselves and come to terms with unresolved relational issues as well as to discover afresh the richness of the current relationships

Practical Orientation IV, Session IV Dying is a final letting go. Exercises in “Letting Go”

Taken primarily from the Book “The Power of Letting Go” by Patricia Carrington the purpose is to enter into the many exercises where the trainee learns to let go of needs such as approval, control, and expectations. Exercises also deal with releasing for various relational problems.

Session V

Here dealt with are the Issues of attachment, loss and the tasks of mourning

Session VI

Normal Grief Reactions: Uncomplicated mourning

Manifestations of Normal grief, Grief and depression, determinants of grief.

Session VII

Grief counselling: Facilitating Uncomplicated grief

Goals of grief counselling, counselling principles and procedures

Session VIII

Abnormal Grief Reactions: Complicated mourning

How grief goes wrong, why people fail to grieve.

Session IX

Grief Therapy : Resolving Pathological Grief

The goals and procedures, special considerations, Techniques and timing

Session X

Grieving Special Types of Losses

Suicide, Sudden death, Sudden infant death, still births, Anticipatory grief, Aids

Session XI

Grief and Family Systems

Death of a child, children whose parents die, grief and the elderly, family versus individual needs.

Session XII

The Counselor’s own grief.

Assignments for the Counselee trainees include individual presentation of the Chapters from the book “Grief, Dying and Death” by Therese A. Rondo including undertaking planned exercises that follows each chapter.