Bereavement Professionals’ Insights

Jean – It’s all about love

Jean talks about losing her husband to a heart attack on valentines day

Madelyn – The power of music

Madelyn – discusses the potency of music and processing good and bad memories

Kristal – Attending Memorials as a Support Worker

Kristal discusses the importance of finding ways to honour people that have been lost and how they have impacted you. She speaks to how she often chooses not to attend public memorials for those she has lost as a support worker as they are often very overwhelming. Instead, she has her own personal rituals or ways of honouring those she has lost personally including opening a window. She discusses how this practice was used when she worked in palliative care.

Cara – Grief and intellectual disabilities is a topic that needs to “get out there”

Cara shares some information from a participant in her research on intellectual disabilities and the bereaved. A person with an intellectual disability said… “Grief: It’s a topic that needs to get out there” Grief is something that so many people are hesitant to talk about, to display, to show, because there’s so many social rules around how we grieve. This is particularily challenging for the intellectually disabled.

Corrie – Grief is like a rollercoaster

Corrie talks about grief over time

Janice – “Photographs”

Janice explains how photographs can be a doorway to help move forward.

Claudia – Art in community versus art therapy

Claudia explains how art therapists are trained and how what they do is different that doing art in community

Maureen – Holiday kindness and grief

Maureen discusses grieving during the holidays and being lifter up by kindness

Maureen – “Grief can come back”

Maureen explains however grief comes back, you are OK.

Rev. Sky – “The grief tunnel”

Rev. Sky talks about going forward and growing in the grief process.

Carrie – Photography and grieving

Carrie discusses how photography can be very freeing in that it allows for exploration and move us away from the need to explain and can be more about experience what our own process is all about.

Caleigh – Play Therapy

Caileigh explains how play therapy, a form of psychotherapy can help children in grief. It is specifically used when working with children and families and youth because it’s developmentally appropriate. They are never expected to sit down and to talk. And it is through the language of play that they’re able to learn about the confusing feelings of grief. They are able to learn new skills to cope with their grief, and they’re able to go at their own pace.