Death and Dying : Psychotherapy Resources

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Grief Therapy Masterclass: Advanced Skills in Working Through Loss

with Robert A. Neimeyer, Carolyn Ng

Help your clients better navigate life after loss and cultivate the seeds of transformative growth with the rich trove of tools demonstrated in this four-volume series by renowned grief experts Robert Neimeyer and Carolyn Ng. Working with seven clients suffering a range of losses, they’ll guide you through a powerful meaning-based approach to grief therapy that goes far beyond normalizing, educating and symptom management, to nurture growth from grief.

Irvin Yalom on Grief, Loss, and Growing Old

with Irvin Yalom

Join celebrated clinician and author Irvin Yalom at the existential crossroads of life and death in a riveting interview in which he offers invaluable personal and professional insights into the meaning of work, love and loss.

Confronting Death and Other Existential Issues in Psychotherapy

with Irvin Yalom

Here’s a chance to have a front row seat as Dr. Irvin Yalom talks to a packed room of therapists about a topic rarely discussed in our field: death. Sharing ideas from his most recent book, Staring at the Sun Yalom shows us how to confront death in order to invigorate and enhance our own lives and the lives of our patients.

Facing Terminal Illness: A Guide for Helping Professionals

with Satir Institute of the Southeast

Virginia Satir's model for the process of change is illustrated in this video through the story of a terminally ill patient and the hospice workers who support her through the process of dying.

Death, Dying and Grief in Psychotherapy (2-Video Series)

with Milton Viederman

Watch Milton Viederman, MD, bring a psychoanalytic orientation to psychotherapy with patients struggling with grief — both in a private clinical setting and with in-hospital cancer patients—in this profound series on death and dying.

Grief Therapy Masterclass Volume 1: A Meaning-Based Model

with Robert A. Neimeyer, Carolyn Ng

Working with grieving clients is one of the most technically challenging and emotionally demanding clinical endeavors, one for which most clinicians are neither formally trained nor prepared. This video, the first in a breakthrough four-volume series, will help clinicians move beyond outdated notions and methods or simply “waiting for time to heal,” so they can work confidently, compassionately, and effectively with clients who have been overwhelmed by loss.

Grief Therapy Masterclass Volume 2: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Loss

with Robert A. Neimeyer

One of the greatest challenges to working with grieving clients is helping to free them from the pain of the “event story,” or the circumstances and details of their loved one’s death — especially when the loss is traumatic. In this video, the second in a four-volume series, clinicians will learn to skillfully and compassionately help grieving clients gain some therapeutic distance from the event story of their loss through the process of restorative re-telling.

Grief Therapy Masterclass Volume 3: Realigning Relationships with the Deceased

with Robert A. Neimeyer

Working with grieving clients who enjoyed a positive relationship with their lost loved one usually centers around sadness, yearning, and separation distress. This video, the third in our four-volume series, will deepen clinicians’ skills in working with this form of “adaptive grief” while also helping other clients navigate the more challenging terrain of complicated bereavement, dominated by prolonged, and debilitating loss-related symptomatology.

Grief Therapy Masterclass Volume 4: Reinventing the Self After Loss

with Robert A. Neimeyer, Carolyn Ng

Therapists working with grief may become overly focused on the loss, missing out on growth opportunities for the client. This video, the final in our four-volume series, will further prepare clinicians to work with grieving clients by guiding them in the reconstruction of their identity and relationships as they begin to integrate their loss.

Art Therapy Review Session with Ed, a Cancer Survivor

with Paula Howie

Ed, a long-term cancer survivor, discusses his therapeutic artwork. Articulate and introspective, Ed deliberates about what he was experiencing as well as the physical and psychological issues arising from his long course of treatment for testicular cancer.

A Childs Grief

with Simcha Jacobovici

Children express grief differently than adults, but their pain is just as real and their feelings equally as intense. “A Child’s Grief” takes viewers into the lives of eight children in bereavement support group.

Art Therapy for Individuals with AIDS & Cancer

with Ellen Urbani

One might, at first, think that this video is about Occupational Therapy, as we view Roger, a cancer patient, discuss his project with his art therapist. But asked to talk about how therapy helped him to cope with depression, the emotional and psychological tone of the video changes.

Artists Facing Cancer by Making Art

with Multiple Therapists

This video is a collection of three films that documents artists' use of painting as they face their cancer diagnoses.

Sasha McAllum Pilkington on Grace and Storytelling at the End of Life

Narrative Clinician, Sasha McAllum Pilkington, shares poignant stories she co-created with hospice clients which honor and celebrate their lives.

Healing Conversations: Giving Life to the Life of a Person Who Died by Suicide*

with Linda Moxley-Haegert

A compassionate therapist gently and skillfully guides suffering parents through the shadow of their son’s suicide.

A Small Hope: Co-creating a Narrative of Grief – Part I *

with Sasha McAllum Pilkington

In the shadow of grief, Sasha Pilkington helps a couple embrace the gift of life along with their impending loss.

Deciding How to Die: Narrative Therapy in Palliative Care with Someone Considering Stopping Dialysis

with Sasha McAllum Pilkington

Working with dying clients demands that clinicians honor their choices and desires in end-of-life care.

Narrative Therapy in a Cross-Cultural Conversation with Someone Approaching Death

with Sasha McAllum Pilkington

Bridging the distance between herself, a Pakeha" New Zealander, and her client, a Maori" New Zealander, Sasha McAllum Pilkington shows how relationships can mean the difference between life and death.

Terminally Ill Pediatric Patients and the Grieving Therapist

with Sara Loftin

A pediatric clinician shares the rewards and challenges of working with terminally ill children and their families.

Dr. Shelley F. Diamond: A Psychotherapist Facing Death

with Shelley Diamond

After being diagnosed with aggressive terminal cancer, a psychotherapist shares how she addressed grief, gratitude and loss professionally and personally.

A Small Hope: Co-creating a Narrative of Grief - Part II

with Sasha McAllum Pilkington

Following the loss of her husband, a client finds her way back to living fully for herself and her children through narrative storytelling.

A Matter of Death and Life

with Irvin D. Yalom, MD & Marilyn Yalom, PhD

In this excerpt from A Matter of Death and Life, Irvin Yalom speaks from the depths of pain over losing his beloved wife and co-author, Marilyn; not only to fellow therapists but to all of us who have lost loved ones.

Psychotherapy with Older Adults: Unjustified Fears, Unrecognized Rewards

with George Kraus

A geriatric clinical psychologist debunks the stereotypes about working with elderly populations, and shares his discovery of the joy and gratitude that come from intimate contact with wise elders.

Motivational Interviewing in End-of-Life Care

with Ellen Young

A social work intern grapples with a situation that would challenge even an experienced clinician: helping a loving wife decide whether to stop feeding her dying husband of 64 years.

Encounters with Suicide: A Psychotherapist Remembers Not to Forget

with Catherine Ambrose

A psychotherapist treating a suicidal client struggles with memories--and forgetting--of suicide in her own family.

After the Diagnosis: Helping Patients Cope With their Emotions

with Gary McClain

Psychotherapist Gary McClain discusses the importance of understanding clients' reactions to new diagnoses, the three main responses they have, and advocating for them with healthcare providers.

What Remains: The Aftermath of Patient Suicide

with Margaret Clausen

Psychologist Margaret Clausen shares poignantly about the loss of her client to suicide, the steps she took to heal her grief, and the isolation and shame that many clinicians needlessly suffer in the wake of client suicide.

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death

with Irvin Yalom

In this exclusive excerpt from his latest book, Irvin Yalom delves into the ultimate existential concern, and how therapists can help clients in facing death anxiety.

Kenneth Doka on Grief Counseling and Psychotherapy

A leading expert on grief counseling and therapy, discusses how understanding individual grieving styles is essential to grief counselors and all therapists helping clients deal effectively with loss.

Reflections of a Psychology Resident in Trauma and Acute Care

with Nina Silander, PsyD

En route to becoming a psychologist, a resident reflects on her clinical trials by fire in a Level-1 trauma center.

Krista Tippett on the Immensity of Our Lives

Departing from tradition, our Editor, Lawrence Rubin, turns the microphone on Peabody Award-winning journalist Krista Tippett to explore questions around what it means to be truly human

How to Help Clients Change the Narrative of Aging

with Bill Randall

By viewing aging as an adventure, gerontologist William Randall offers alternative narratives to counselors and clinicians working with older adults.

My First Private Patient

with Valery Hazanov

As a young therapist, Valery Hazanov reflects on his therapeutic relationship with an elder fellow Russian, and wonders if he made a difference.

Introducing Grief: How My Clients and I Have Embraced the Exploration of Loss

with Stephen Grigelevich

Tips for helping your clients embrace grief and get unstuck from loss in their lives.

An Existential-Spiritual Journey During COVID-19

with Robert Gordon

In the shadow of COVID, a therapist and his client address their own uncertainties in order to experience freedom and deeper meaning.

Katja-Writing: Being Author and Audience to Fictionalized Stories of Trauma- Part II

with Christoffer Haugaard, Irene and David Epston

Join Christoffer Haugaard and David Epston as they deepen and conclude their powerful work with Irene to build stories through which she heals from brutal childhood trauma.

Full Container

with Sylvia Johnson

Couples therapy can unlock and heal the deepest of pains, those related to the loss of a child.

Robert J. Lifton on Political Violence, Activism and Life as a Psycho-Historian

Famed psychiatrist, psycho-historian, writer and activist Robert J. Lifton talks about being a witness to an extreme century, combining scholarship with activism, the psychology of violence, and the next great threat to the planet: climate change.

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Death and Dying