Working With Aging, Illness and Dying Training

A Body-Centered Training for Helping Professionals, Bodyworkers, Caregivers, Patients and Curious Others

The Association of Death Education and Counseling® has deemed this program as counting towards the continuing education requirements for the ADEC Certification in Thanatology.  Aging, illness and dying are profound physical, emotional, energetic and spiritual processes unfolding everywhere, around and within us. They present opportunities for deep transformation and invite us into a conversation with the force of life itself. Skillful guidance for this deep work can be scarce. Rarely have we been shown how to hold a larger picture of life, or be truly vital walking the path of helping. How do we work with the mysterious relationship between health and illness, living and dying? How do these processes predictably challenge and change relationships? We will take these questions up in two weekends of study and practice, bringing teachings of human development, somatic psychotherapy and hospice work to a unique conversation on the movements of life.

Holding these processes in unity, we become vastly more enlivened and empowered to support of others in all phases of life. These two weekends are designed for patients or those in caring roles, but are appropriate for anyone working with mortality. They will increase life knowledge, encourage intuition and give tools for vitality. 

Though weekends can be taken independently as space allows, it is highly recommended that they be taken together.

Seeing Death and Life as One: Human Development and the Force of Life
Is death really the opposite of life or one of its primary expressions? In this evening, we will take a look at the seldom challenged idea that death and life are opposites, and how the lines between them have become less clear. Can we learn to see life and death as one? We will look at the teachings of nature, and the predictable changes of the body itself to get clues to this unity.

Working With Aging, Illness and Dying as Process (Part 1)
In this weekend we will study the physical, psychological and spiritual changes of later human life: the tasks of aging, the challenges of illness, the process of dying. Students will learn to explore patterns in the life force as it changes, with the goal of increasing intuition, and presence with these processes. Teaching will be anchored in case discussion, direct experience and practice. Besides teaching an overall map of life through change, this class will cover practical skills such as attunement, assessment, reading psyche and body together, and interventions of touch, movement and breath. As part of this weekend, Jeanne will be joined by Barbara Goldschmidt, educator, licensed massage therapist, policy advocate and author of Comforting Touch in Dementia and End of Life Care.

Working with Relationship Systems  Through Aging, Illness and Dying (Part 2)
Relationships are living energetic creations. They change through life much as we do, in individual yet predictable ways. Aging, illness and dying impact relationships deeply. In this weekend, we will learn basics of relationship dynamics, including their response to change and endings. We will consider dyads as systems of energy. With that view, we will explore such things as how and why relationship affects the body so profoundly, how grief impacts illness, the challenges of co-dependency, the struggle to satisfy childhood longings through dying, why people outside of primary relationships are necessary and helpful and the perils of burnout. Finally we look at continuing bonds after death.