In the course of counselling, you may come across clients who foresee their impending loss of someone significant in their lives through different terminal illnesses and other life-threatening circumstances (e.g. comatose state resulted from a severe accident or a fast-progressing critical medical condition).  This training will introduce meaning-oriented perspectives of anticipatory grief and separation anxiety as experienced by the family members and the surrounding others of those who are given poor prognosis and are critically ill.  It will also equip you with meaning reconstructive intervention tools to support the affected family members and friends in the face of their looming separation from their dying loved one. 

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

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

• To address family’s distress resulting from caregiving burdens and communication issues

• To implement meaning-oriented techniques to facilitate family’s preparation and coping with the impending loss and separation

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GRIEF COUNSELLING FUNDAMENTALS COVERED

• Essential features of separation anxiety and anticipatory grief

• Use of Analogical Listening to explore the pre-loss turmoil

• Pre-loss risk assessment for possible complications in post-loss adjustments

• Use of a conversation guide, "To Tell or Not To Tell," to examine communication concerns over bad news and possible secrets and taboos

• Application of Composition Work to examine the landscape of self and to explore possible post-loss reconstruction​