Intervening in meaning: A creative workshop in grief therapy
organized by Department of Social Work & Social Administration
Viewed by HKU and Public
Event Type: Public Lecture/Forum/Seminar/Workshop/Conference/Symposium
Event Discipline: Social Development & Welfare

About the Trainer:
Robert A. Neimeyer, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, where he also maintains an active clinical practice. Since completing his doctoral training at the University of Nebraska in 1982, he has published 30 books, including Techniques of Grief Therapy: Creative Practices for Counseling the Bereaved and Grief and the Expressive Arts: Practices for Creating Meaning, the latter with Barbara Thompson, and serves as Editor of the journal Death Studies. Neimeyer served as President of the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC), and Chair of the International Work Group for Death, Dying, & Bereavement. In recognition of his scholarly contributions, he has been granted the Eminent Faculty Award by the University of Memphis, made a Fellow of the Clinical Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, and given Lifetime Achievement Awards by both the Association for Death Education and Counseling and the International Network on Personal Meaning.

About the Workshop:
You’ve spent years offering support to bereaved people. And when they appear “stuck” in an anguishing and life vitiating grief, you’ve used reliable procedures to help them manage waves of disruptive emotion, reconnect with others, and envision a changed life and changed bond with their deceased loved one. You’ve likely encountered and found inspiration in some of the newer models of grieving, and perhaps even sought training in recent evidence-based protocols for addressing the possible complications in bereavement. But where can you turn to find an ample frame for this work, one that respects the fundamental role of our personal presence to a client’s suffering, while also helping us navigate the sometimes mysterious process of therapy within which we perform specific procedures?

This workshop is designed to answer just these questions. Beginning with a discussion of the multiple meanings of meaning, it offers to experienced grief therapists a generous set of principles for practice, illustrated in clinical video, live demonstrations and experiential exercises. Pushing beyond a conception of bereavement support as “talk therapy,” we will then consider several methods for exploring grief related metaphors, imagery and embodied knowing, artfully integrating visual media with analogical listening to deepen clients’ awareness of their implicit needs in relation to their particular loss. In keeping with a constructivist understanding of resistance to change as a coherent expression of often inarticulate core beliefs and purposes, we will consider how to invite and engage such “immunity to change” in the process of therapy, and watch this non-counteractive stance unfold in recordings of actual sessions. Finally, we will practice visual supervision of current therapy cases, in order to understand more clearly the problem systems in which both our clients and we are enmeshed, and to imagine more constructive alternatives. Described by previous participants as “wildly creative, but practically relevant,” this workshop is intended to stimulate clinical creativity in grief therapy, enlivening both experienced practitioners and the clients they serve.

Date/Time 23/02/2017 09:30-17:30 Venue Centre on Behavioral Health, The University of Hong Kong, 2/F., 5 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong Language English

Registration is open from 20/12/2016 17:00(HKT) to 21/02/2017 13:00(HKT) on a first-come-first-served basis. The registration quota for this event is 100. Registrants will be placed on a waiting list if the registration quota is reached.