About the Course
In the face of the bad news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness, patients often have to face both their own impending death and separation from their loved ones through different dying trajectories, which can be swift or protracted. This complex emotional journey often triggers existential crisis, death anxiety and pre-death grief in a way that calls for professional psychological attention. In this workshop, we will examine terminal illness and its implications from the 4-Dimensional Framework of Meaning Reconstruction that reviews the event story of the illness, the relational story between patients and their significant ones, the personal story of the self, and the existential story of life. We will also address death anxiety, distress related to unfinished business with significant people in life, and pre-death grief experienced by those diagnosed with a terminal illness. Through various small group practices and discussion, learners will become acquainted with relevant meaning-focused intervention tools to facilitate conversations about life and death and life review with these clients, and to preserve and enhance their sense of dignity, as they learn to cope with their dying trajectory and face their eventual death.
Course Outline:
Terminal illness as a crisis of meaning through a 4-dimensional framework
Conversations about life and death through Walking the Labyrinth of Life
Use of Virtual Dream Stories to explore death anxiety and preparatory grief
Life review through curating My Life Exhibits
Application of My Life Footprints to review significant connections in life
Practice of Feast of My Life as a form of life celebration and legacy building
Application of various assessment tools and conversational guides to examine the degree of meaning crisis and evaluate the patient’s sense of dignity
Course Objectives
Examine the threat of terminal illness and its implications from a 4-dimensional meaning reconstruction framework;
Address pre-death anxiety, preparatory grief and unfinished business distress that are often experienced by the person with a terminal condition; and
Implement meaning-oriented techniques to facilitate the quest for meaning in the face of terminal illness and impending death.
Who Should Attend
Counsellors, healthcare workers, social workers, psychologists, teachers and principals, pastoral staff, and people involved in the helping profession
Award
Participants who meet 75% class attendance will be awarded a Certificate of Completion by the Academy of Human Development.
Your Trainer
Dr Carolyn Ng
Dr Carolyn Ng, PsyD, FT, MMSAC, RegCLR maintains a private practice, Anchorage for Loss and Transition (for more information, please visit: www.anchorage-for-loss.org). She also serves as Associate Director and Faculty with the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition in Portland, OR, United States. Previously, she was a Principal Counsellor with the Children’s Cancer Foundation in Singapore, specialising in cancer-related palliative care and bereavement counselling support. She is a registered counsellor, master clinical member and approved clinical supervisor with the Singapore Association for Counselling (SAC). She is also a Fellow in Thanatology (FT) registered with the Association of Death Education and Counselling (ADEC), USA; as well as a consultant to a cancer support and bereavement ministry in Sydney, NSW, Australia.
She is certified in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy and Narrative Therapy as well.
Carolyn first graduated with Bachelor of Arts from the University of New South Wales, Australia, majoring in psychology, followed by Master of Social Science (Counselling) from the Edith Cowan University, Australia and a Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry (Conflict Management) from the Trinity Theological Seminary, USA. She subsequently completed her doctoral training in psychology with the California Southern University, USA. She is also trained in the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) by the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, USA, community crisis response by the National Organisation for Victim Assistance (NOVA), USA, as well as Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) by LivingWorks, Canada. She is a trained end-of-life doula and a certified Advanced Care Planning facilitator as well.
Her wide counselling experiences cover youth delinquency issues, marital issues, family violence issues, mental health issues, incarceration issues, grief and loss issues, and crisis interventions. She has varied supervisory experiences with such helping professionals as counsellors, social workers and therapists in diverse settings as well. She also conducts training workshops and presents on various topics in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, as invited by different organizations both in Singapore and other countries like Malaysia, Taiwan, Bhutan, Australia and United States over the years.
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