Psychology of Aging
We live in a culture that denies aging and death. This cultural denial
affects both the treatment of the elderly and how we view aging as
individuals. How we deal with aging depends on how we deal with our
own mortality. When we deny our mortality, a denial of other losses may
follow. This workshop will begin with a discussion of the losses associated
with aging. The different stages that are experienced with any loss
will also be discussed. The group will learn how it is possible to
break the pattern of denial by working together.
Workshop Topics
Denial of Aging: Cultural worship of youth and exercise.
How our view of our mortality affects how we deal with aging.
The stages of loss.
Breaking the pattern of denial.
What You Learn
To identify and share feelings about aging and loss.
To understand that the pattern of denial can be broken by working together.
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Altzheimer's Disease--Allowing the Grief
When a family member develops a chronic illness
like Altzheimer's Disease, a constant state of bereavement
for all family members can result. Grief is often denied
and held back because it is painful and scary.
In this workshop a safe environment is created to discuss
the stages of loss and the need to allow ourselves to grieve
in a loss situation. The group will also discuss the stages
of loss and the need to care for each other physically, emotionally,
and spiritually.
Workshop Topics
The stages of loss.
Grief associated with Altzheimer's Disease.
How/Why we develop denial of grief.
Symptoms of bereavement.
Allowing ourselves to grieve.
What You Learn
To better understand grief and its causes.
That there is a need to allow ourselves to grieve.
The benefits of caring for each other emotionally and spiritually.
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Anger is defined as a strong feeling
of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a real or supposed wrong. It
is a primary component of the grief and loss process. We experience many
losses throughout our lifetime, and the resulting anger is often denied.
We try to hold this anger back, but it will be expressed, often over issues
that have nothing to do with what initially has caused that anger to be
denied. One may be mad that a friend is sick, but instead of expressing
anger over this, it may be directed towards those around us. Our culture
teaches us that being angry and out of control is inappropriate. Women
are taught that it is not feminine; that tears are more appropriate. Men
are taught to hold the anger in. There are reasons to be angry. We must
give ourselves
permission to express this anger. The rage must b externalized. By
allowing this anger, we can begin to understand the underlying causes.
1. Fear, Anger, and Confrontation
As losses accumulate over the years, the resulting denial of these losses
can become more difficult to manage, and we may experience feelings
of failure and unworthiness. Fear may also arise from denial of loss.
Because of this ongoing struggle between fear and unworthiness, anger
may result. This workshop will discuss the conflicting perspectives
about anger and confrontation taught to us as children. It will stress
the
importance of giving oneself permission to vent anger.
Workshop Topics
Anger as a component of the grief and loss process. Cycle of fear and
denial. Conflicting perspectives about confrontation. Double bind
situation--stand up for yourself only when acceptable? Conflict as
inevitable but not abnormal or undesirable. Sources of conflict. Conflict
resolutions.
What You Learn
To better understand anger and its causes. To give permission to vent
anger. That conflict is not abnormal and should not be undesirable. That
there is a need for compromise in conflict.
2. Dealing with Anger
We experience many losses in our lifetime and the resulting anger is
often denied. This day long workshop creates an environment in which
individuals feel safe to examine anger as an issue, and to give ourselves
permission to vent our anger.
Workshop Topics
Understanding our anger--how it ties to self-worth and fear.
Confronting anger.
How to vent anger in a positive way.
What You Learn
To externalize anger.
To understand the underlying causes of anger.
To work through anger.
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Issues of Loss in Children
Children and teenagers experience loss just like everyone else. Young
people may learn how to react to loss by modeling adult behavior. As
adults, we have a problem in dealing with loss because it is painful,
and, as a result, the loss is often denied. Children may have a problem
in
dealing with their losses because they have not yet learned to communicate
such issues. Parents may choose not to discuss loss with their
children because they want to protect their children from pain. The
grief naturally associated with losses should be allowed to surface so
these
feelings can be expressed. This three hour workshop will address grief
and loss issues as they relate to both adults and children.
Workshop Topics
Stages of loss.
How teenagers and children react to loss.
Allowing ourselves to grieve and express feelings.
What You Learn
To better understand the loss process.
The need to allow grief.
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Caring to Confront
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of group work is recoginzing, understanding,
and resolving conflict and confrontation. So often tied to anger
and self image, dealing with conflict can become the key element in
a group's growth or even its survival. This intensive experiential workshop
allows participants to examine the different aspects of confrontation--8
hours.
Workshop Topics
Sources of conflict.
Why we avoid conflict.
Creative confrontation.
What You Learn
To recognize sources of conflict.
To understand why we avoid conflict.
Possible ways to resolve conflicts.
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Death, Dying, Grief
and Loss Four Weeks - One Hour per Day
Death and dying are issues that everyone must face in a lifetime. Difficulty
may arise in facing this issue because of a personal or cultural denial
of death and dying. The main objective of this workshop is to address
community needs, as well as the needs that we as individuals face in the
struggle to understand our personal mortality. This discussion will
include the stages associated with loss.
Workshop Topics
Cultural and personal death denial.
Stages of loss.
Breaking down the barriers of denial.
What You Learn
To recognize what you have been patterned to believe.
To understand and overcome ineffective personal and cultural patterns.
To better experience true wellness through balanced recognition and
understanding of death.
Death and Dying- Week Two
Allowing Ourselves to See - Seminars focusing on death and dying are
aimed at creating an environment in which it is safe to look at fearful
and sometimes painful issues. An overview of the death and dying process
from both a cultural and a personal perspective is offered.
Monday - Death and Dying--Cultural Denial
Tuesday - Stages of Dying--Denial, Anger, and Bargaining
Wednesday - Stages of Dying--Depression and Acceptance
Thursday - Giving Ourselves Permission--Moment-to- Moment
Friday - Discussion
What You Learn
To recognize cultural patterns of belief about death.
To better understand the stages of dying and loss.
Grief and Bereavement-Week Three
Working Through the Losses - Because of our culturally induced denial
of death and dying, our ability to allow ourselves to grieve is greatly
impaired. These seminars look at what the normal process of grief and
loss involves, and how to give ourselves permission to experience our
grief.
Monday - Unresolved Grief--"Where does it go?"
Tuesday - Understanding the Process
Wednesday - Giving Ourselves Time
Thursday - Recognizing the Losses
Friday - Discussion
What You Learn
To recognize the grieving process, include the denial of grief.
To understand the need to give yourself time to grieve.
To recognize the losses associated with living.
Stress-Week Four
Recognition and Relief - Contemporary culture has made the experience
of stress inevitable. This week's seminars focus on understanding,
recognizing, and doing something with the stress each of us experience
daily.
Monday - Physiology of Stress
Tuesday - Recognizing the Stress
Wednesday - Relaxation Techniques
Thursday - Relaxing While Facing the Issues
Friday - Discussion
What You Learn
To recognize stress.
To practice relaxation techniques to alleviate stress.
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Eldercare - Managing Appropriate Care
While Working Forty Hours a Week.
An increasing number of the children's generation are discovering the
difficulties in the responsibility of caring for aging parents while also
working forty hours a week. The goal of this workshop is the understanding
of the grief and loss process both of the aging parent and of their
children as caregivers. We will discuss the need for training preschool
age children for loss by integrating them with the elderly. In addition,
alternative care and other options offered within the community will
be discussed.
Workshop Topics
Aging-Understanding the Loss Process
We the Children-Understanding the Role Reversal
Community Care- What's Out There
Education- Changes that need to be made to integrate elderly and people
of all ages.
What You Learn
To recognize the grief process of the aging.
To better comprehend their needs.
To understand, as a caregiver, the loss associated with the role reversal.
To understand the importance of training preschool age children for
loss from the beginning by integrating them with the elderly at a young
age.
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Communication and Group Dynamics
In our consistent attempts at understanding the dynamics of our community
and of the groups with which we work, it is important that we more
clearly recognize our individual roles and actions and reactions within
groups. Understanding how groups interact as well as the form and
content of our individual responses, is a prerequisite for growth in
our community work and our individual lives--8 hours.
Workshop Topics
Active listening--positive feedback.
Group interaction--process versus content. The individual's role in
groups. Information sharing.
What You Learn
The importance of recognizing the individual's role in a group setting.
A better understanding of how groups interact.
Support Groups
In addition to workshops, retreats, and educational opportunities, Sena
Foundation recognizes the need to offer ongoing support to those
experiencing a variety of losses. A group, whose members are all struggling
to understand and work through the same loss, has a remarkable
power to offer guidance and support. The creation of a safe, supportive,
non-threatening environment, within which the sharing of individual
perspectives can be encouraged, is an aid to coping with crisis and,
ultimately, healing. At present, Sena Foundation offers the following support
groups:
Dying And Bereavement--These groups allow individuals to experience
grief and to encourage healing.
Divorce--Participants look at divorce as a loss similar to death, and
understand their feelings of hostility, guilt, anger, and depression.
Chronic Illness--This group look at the losses associated with chronic
illness and addresses the feelings of depression and anger.
Men's Issues--This support group offers a safe, non-threatening environment
where men can develop bonds with other men.
Caregivers--This group offers a safe place for discussion and sharing
of issues of grief associated with caregiving.
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Homelessness
Losing one's home can be a devastating experience. One may feel a loss
of control in such a situation and assume that something is wrong with
oneself. Homelessness can affect not only one's family and lifestyle,
but also one's self-esteem and motivation. Unresolved past losses may
surface in trying to deal with this new loss. The procession of grief
in stages can be applied to any loss, including homelessness. This workshop
will address the stages of loss and the importance of understanding
the loss process.
Workshop Topics
Stages of loss.
Grief associated with homelessness.
How this loss affects past losses.
What You Learn
To better understand the loss process.
The need to allow the grief.
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Aging and Dying-
Holistic Care for the '90s
Hospice care is dedicated to the quality of life
for both the patient and the family of the patient, allowing them to be
in control when possible. In
hospital-hospice care, a support group is created out of various people--doctors,
nurses, psychologists, chaplains, family--where everyone's
input is important. Care is provided not only for the patient and family
of the patient, but also for the caregiver, allowing the doctors and nurses
to
grieve as well. The grieving process can affect everyone involved,
including the hospice worker. In this workshop, the stages of grief will
be
discussed. A safe environment will be provided to discuss the need
for hospice care and the grief that can be associated with hospice care.
Workshop Topics
Why hospice care is needed.
Caring for ourselves as caregivers.
The stages of grief.
What You Learn
The importance of hospice care.
A better understanding of the loss process.
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Remembering
Yourself--A Retreat for Caregivers
As caregivers we are in constant motion. Our work demands attention
and commitment. But, often in the giving, we forget ourselves. We know
we need to care for ourselves and allow time to grieve, but often there
seems to be no time left. We no longer hear the music or taste the food.
This retreat begins Friday evening and ends Sunday evening. It will
allow us to come together to give permission to reestablish contact with
ourselves through discussion, guided meditation, and through the practice
of silence.
Retreat Activities
Practice of Silence.
Guided meditation.
Group sharing exercises.
Silent, attentive meal taking.
Musical meditation.
Individual Spiritual Focusing.
What You Learn
To re-experience hearing and taste and silence.
To remember who you really are.
The need to allow yourself time to grieve.
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Loss
Awareness and the Inner Journey--A Retreat
It is important to recognize how physically and emotionally overwhelmed
one may become in today's constantly changing society. This retreat,
lasting from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, allows participants
to become reacquainted with themselves. Through withdrawal from
normal life patterns, guided meditations, and by re-experiencing silence,
retreat members create a safe environment in which they can
remember who they are before addressing personal grief and loss issues.
Retreat Activities
Practice of silence.
Guided meditations.
Group sharing exercises.
Silent meal-taking.
Individual spiritual focusing.
What You Learn
To re-experience hearing, taste, and silence.
To allow personal stillness.
To recognize yourself within others.
To remember who you really are.
To allow hidden feelings to become conscious.
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Sharing Our Grief: Parents Who Have Lost Children
Losing a child can be very painful. This workshop will address the anger
and grief associated with the loss of a child. A safe environment will
be
used to share feelings and to discuss the need to express the grief.
Workshop Topics
Stages of loss.
Symptoms of bereavement.
Giving permission to express the grief.
What You Learn
To better understand loss and its stages.
To better understand the need to express the grief.
To share the grief with others.
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Rape-Understanding the Grief
Because rape is an act of violence, too often the loss aspect of rape
is ignored. This workshop looks at rape as an experience which triggers
all
the stages of bereavement. It also examines how the rape experience
affects subsequent loss experiences.
Workshop Topics
Recognizing loss stages from within chaos.
After the rape--new losses.
Understanding loss and the way towards healing.
What You Learn
To give yourself permission to grieve.
To vent your feelings as a way towards recovery.
To recognize the effect on subsequent losses.
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Seminars in the Workplace
Brown Bag Seminars
Finding opportunities to offer grief and loss education is critical
to the wellness of our communities. Without extensive education the present
grief/loss needs of the community cannot be met, and preparation for
the increased community needs of the aging population cannot be
addressed.
Offering grief/loss educational opportunities in the workplace is a
powerful option to corporations wanting to be caring and humane employers.
Such seminars on grief and loss issues can favorably impact production
by positively affecting the wellness of the employees. Brown Bag
Seminars offer a non-threatening environment to deal with grief/loss
issues. Because the employees are already gathered at the workplace,
involvement in the seminars is easy to accomplish. Employees already
see themselves as part of a group, and involvement in a workplace
seminar may seem much less threatening than attending a seminar with
a group of strangers.
The seminars, offered over a four week period, cover the following topics:
eldercare, death and dying, grief and bereavement, and stress. Each
seminar starts five minutes after the lunch period begins. A fifteen
minute presentation is followed by a five minute discussion. This format
allows
five minutes for employees to return to work. Friday of each week is
set aside for a discussion of the week's seminars.
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For more information about our educational
programs please send email
with Subject:Workshops. |
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