Facing death and loss is life’s most profound challenge. The tragic loss of a child, parent, sibling, life partner, or loved one can shatter dreams and reverberate through relational networks. In contrast to individual symptom-focused, manualized grief treatment, Dr. Walsh presents her resilience-oriented systemic approach with individuals, couples, and families, attending to relational, social, and cultural-spiritual influences in grieving, coping, and positive adaptation. Practice principles, guidelines, and case vignettes are described to guide work with complex and traumatic death situations: e.g. sudden, untimely, ambiguous, or disenfranchised loss; fatal accidents, violence, or suicide; major disasters or war; and in conflicted/estranged bonds, or in past suppressed loss connected to other presenting problems in help-seeking, often years later.
We’ll explore clinicians’ common challenges and compassion fatigue in attending to death, dying, and loss, and how professional ethos, structural barriers, and our personal concerns and family legacies can hinder our helpfulness. We’ll discuss therapists’ use of self and ways to overcome constraints, expand our perspective, and enrich our compassionate engagement, effectiveness, and our own resilience. Throughout the day, we’ll highlight the power of relational connections, meaning-making, hope, and transcendent values to heal from unbearable loss and go forward to thrive.
Learning Objectives:
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Research-informed best practices with complicated bereavement, critiquing faulty and pathologizing assumptions of “normal/abnormal” grief to address diversity, complexity, and social disparities in situations of profound and traumatic loss
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Core principles in systemic practice with shattering losses
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Useful practice guidelines to address traumatic situations of sudden, untimely death; ambiguous and disenfranchised loss; violent deaths (e.g. gun violence, overdose, suicide); and collective trauma and loss in community disasters
- New perspectives and ways to prevent compassion fatigue and overcome professional, structural, and personal constraints to increase productive use of self and enrich therapeutic engagement and effectiveness in work with death, dying, and loss
Presenter:
Froma Walsh, PhD is Professor Emerita, Crown School and Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Chicago, and Co-Founder/Co-Director, Chicago Center for Family Health. Dr. Walsh is the leading global expert on family resilience, with over 3 decades expertise with death, dying, and loss. Her research-informed Family Resilience Framework is applied worldwide. Her collaborative, systemic practice approach integrates developmental, relational, social, and cultural-spiritual perspectives. She is Past President, American Family Therapy Academy; Past Editor, Journal of Marital & Family Therapy; and recipient of many awards (e.g. APA, AFTA, AAMFT) for her distinguished contributions. She is a valued speaker internationally. Her recent books are: Strengthening Family Resilience (3rd ed., 2016); and Complex and Traumatic Loss: Fostering Healing and Resilience (2023).
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Complex and Traumatic Loss: Fostering Healing & Resilience
October 18, 2024
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Froma Walsh, PhD
5 CE Contact Hours
In-Person at Ackerman Institute for the Family