I don't tend to be conventional. I don't believe in stages of grief though I believe that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was one of the most innovative people in the world. I don't believe grief is a feeling because I don't believe it does anyone any use to think of grief as a static emotion. To me, it is a process of taking the pieces of a shattered life and piecing them back together, hopefully taking a loving heart that's been broken and glueing it back together with compassion and awe.
So, when I read my copy of The Forum, the newsletter for the membership of the Association for Death Education and Counseling, my jaw dropped for a second time this year. At school, I wrote a paper about Rollo May and how his theory could be applied to grief counseling. I decided that since this was my passion I would submit a proposal for the 2007 ADEC conference and it was accepted.
Today, meaning making, from the social constructivists, has a lot of attention and a lot of people taking another look at grief. I wanted to look at how we as grief professionals could "be" with the bereft in a new way, moving beyond telling them what tasks, stages, or assignments they needed to do or go through before healing occurred. To my shock, people came to the presentation and the fact that it was standing room only for an unknown PhD student gave my heart cause to soar. People wanted to know what existential humanistic (EH)therapy had to offer the world of grief therapy.
Two days ago, I read the review of my presentation that Eric VandeVoorde, a fellow PhD student wrote. This is not to toot my own horn... I took a risk and put out ideas that pioneers in the field of existential humanistic (EH) psychology had and have been trying to get out into the world, to make a difference, to move us beyond standarized treatment or to move beyond the therapist being in the position to tell the client what they need to do to heal. I was in some ways speaking for the dead... a medium for great therapists like Rollo May and Carl Rogers and sharing the message of today's professors and therapists Kirk Schneider, Candice Fischer, and Myrtle Heery.
This is the end of the review that Eric shared with our membership.... "It is important for therapists to be engaged with their clients to better understand their world. No formula exists that determines the best course of action and their in no linear movement that can be followed. Rather, the client and counselor search together for meaning and work together to help the client create a new life."
"At one point, Stevens stated that bereaved individuals have "lost their sense of being, the death of the concept of the self, which creates anxiety, fear and isolation for the client. It is at this time that the courage to create a new existence becomes the gift of loss". I left her presentation with a deep sense of hope and took solace in the paradox that although death is a tremendous loss it also contains the potential for tremendous growth. Perhaps the greatest personal lesson I will carry away from Stevens' talk is that it would be an error to confine the concepts of existential humanistic psychology to strictly clinical settings. Their wisdom is meant to be applied to our every day lives."
Eric honored me with his words and in turn, I am honored and blessed that mentors Dr. Tom Greening, Dr. Kirk Schneider at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center have carried on the tradition so that a newer generation can bring these concepts out into the worlds we work in and to the people we are engaged with.
To me, it is like socially engaged spirituality at it's finest... to be reminded that it is ourselves, our presence, our being, mind, and spirit that we bring to the encounter that is as healing as the internal journey of the grieving client. It is in taking risks to be genuine that matter.
And it is well worth going out on the limb if it allows others to see the beauty of blending existential humanistic (EH) theory with grief therapy. I appreciate that ADEC gave me the opportunity to share my passion with the hundred people the endured a small hot room and for those who took the chance to see what the EH tradition could offer the world of grief therapy.
For anyone interested in references for further introduction to existential humanistic (EH) theory, you can contact me at [email protected].