Course Description:

Therapists often work with seriously ill patients affected by trauma, aging, advanced disease or terminal illness. While it is essential that we bring the highest level of clinical care to each person, we must also bring our humanness; how we are can be as important as what we do. This course explores the psychological, social, and spiritual concerns faced by those in our care, as we accompany them along their path. Exercises include the experience and practice of mindfulness and presence for use as a clinical tool when issues of loss, suffering, and dying arise in patient care settings. The course concludes with a discussion of ways to support and cope with the losses both witnessed and experienced, so that rather than be depleted by this work, we might be fulfilled and become more whole.