David Kessler – David Kessler: Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

Outline

The Sixth Stage of Grief: Finding Meaning

• Why the stages were never meant to be linear
• What is making meaning in grief?
• Types of meaning making
• How meaning can help remember the person who died with more love than pain
• Why a sixth stage is the key to recovery from grief
• Keys to finding acceptance and moving into the sixth stage

Witnessing vs “Fixing” Grief

• Mirroring techniques
• The cost of trying to “fix” those who are grieving
• Go beyond active listening skills to connect
• The consequence of trying to find meaning too early

Help Clients Change Their Thinking Around Loss

• Strategies to address guilt, shame and stigma in grief
• How to increase resilience after loss
• Use positive psychology to increase the possibility of post traumatic growth
• Understand the “meaning” we attach to the traumatic loss or death
• How to decrease catastrophizing after loss
• Learn ways to instill good memories instead of painful ones

Complicated Grief

• Simplifying grief models and exploring new models, including resiliency and Option B
• Meaning making as a new tool for dealing with murder, multiple losses, Alzheimer’s
• Techniques for strength-based grief counseling
• Post traumatic growth vs Post traumatic trauma
• Techniques for releasing the obsessive replaying of the trauma/death

Help Bereaved parents

• Understand the impact of child loss
• Learn ways to be comfortable with treating this type of loss
• Techniques for helping parents who are often grieving differently
• Learn ways to help sustain the marriage through tremendous loss
• Ways to help parents deal with the discomfort of living and loving again
• Address intimacy issues that may come up in grief

The Grief of Suicide

• Tools for dealing with the “what if’s” and “if only’s”
• Understand the true “why” of death by suicide
• Ways to help others find peace again

Loss by Addiction

• Meaning making for healing self-blame
• How to help loved one’s sort through the shame and isolation
• Understand the roles they did and didn’t play in an addiction death

Shootings and Other Disasters

• Shootings/hurricanes/earthquakes and terrorist’s acts
• Techniques for approaching horrific crime and/or disaster scenes
• The impact of natural vs. manmade disasters

Healing Grief in Divorce

• Use meaning to reframe divorce and heal shame
• Heal after betrayal by understanding its meaning
• Understand the true meaning of marriage after it ends
• Interpret the meaning behind negative reoccurring patterns
• Negative meanings we make after a relationship ends

Healing Complicated Relationships after Death

• Learn techniques to heal a relationship after death
• Understand patterns that can heal that relationship and help in all future relationships
• Learn ways to help your client find peace in difficult relationships

Meaning and the Afterlife

• Effective and ineffective models of continuing connections for living a full life
• Use the model of continuing bonds and connections for healing
• Learn ways to normalize client experiences around continued connections with loved ones that have died