David Kessler – Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

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Handouts

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

Faculty

David Kessler

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David Kessler is one of the world’s foremost experts on healing and loss. His experience with thousands of people on the edge of life and death has taught him the secrets to living a happy and fulfilled life.

He is the author of six bestselling books. His new book is Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. His first book, The Needs of the Dying, a #1 best-selling hospice book, received praise by (Saint) Mother Teresa. He co-authored two bestsellers with the legendary Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: On Grief and Grieving and Life Lessons. His most newly released book is You Can Heal Your Heart: Finding Peace After Breakup, Divorce or Death with Louise Hay. He worked with Elizabeth Taylor, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Marianne Williamson when their loved ones faced life-challenging illnesses. He also worked with late actors Anthony Perkins and Michael Landon. David’s work has been discussed in the Los Angeles Times, Business Week and Life Magazine, and has been featured on “Brené Brown, CNN-Cross Fire”, NBC, Fox, PBS, “Dr. Oz” and “Entertainment Tonight”. David is a contributing writer on Oprah.com, Dr. Oz’s Sharecare.com, “Anderson Cooper 360” and “The Huffington Post”.

David has a master’s degree in Health Care Bioethics from Loyola Marymount University, he did his undergraduate work at University of Southern California and is a member of the American College of Health Care Executives. He is a certified AMA/EPEC (Education for Physicians) trainer. He also is the founding chairperson for the Hospital Association of Southern California Palliative Care Committee and spent the last decade as a C-suite executive in a 650 bed – three hospital system in Los Angeles County.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: David Kessler receives compensation as Vice President of Patient Support Services for Citrus Valley Health Partners. He is an author for Simon & Schuster – New York and receives royalties. Mr. Kessler receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.
Nonfinancial: David Kessler has no relevant nonfinancial relationship to disclose.