Although the death of a highly significant other naturally gives rise to grief over their loss, it also commonly confronts us with loss of parts of ourselves that were anchored in that relationship. This 2-day workshop extends our previous training on the Loss of Another, Loss of the Self by expanding our clinical toolkit for addressing self-reconstruction in the wake of bereavement, offering opportunities to try out a range of written, verbal, visual and arts-assisted methods for recognizing how the loss of another can erode our own sense of identity, while also opening pathways for necessary change and growth.
We begin by introducing a research-based visual analogue task for assessing the degree to which the lost other was included in the self, and reflecting on which if any of the traces of the relationship remain with us still. We then represent the masks of grief we often wear, and the possible discrepancy between the public selves that we project and the private selves that we protect. Subsequent methods help us symbolize our shifting community of self across seasons of change, to voice our own inner wisdom about how to become the person we wish to be as we move into a changed future, and to acknowledge aspects of our own growth anchored in our continuing bond with the lost other. Learners will complete the training with practical tools for assessing clients’ risks and resources stemming from their unique bond with the deceased, and several flexible procedures for fostering self-reconstruction in grief therapy.
