A House of Pain: Coping and Support after Catastrophic Loss
A presentation on the emotional, spiritual and biological trajectory of grief, and the evidence behind the strategies that help.
A presentation by Joanne Cacciatore, author of Bearing the Unbearable, on grief after catastrophic loss. Grief, especially when the death is traumatic, has an emotional, spiritual and psychobiological trajectory. The presentation sets out the effect of grief on the whole self, the adaptive and biological responses to severe stress, including posttraumatic stress and acute stress, and the social and systemic factors that feed a grieving person's sense of loneliness. It then examines evidence-based strategies for reducing the long-lasting effects of traumatic grief, and what counts as good social support for those in mourning.
What this course covers
- The trajectory grief takes when a death is traumatic
- The effect of grief on the whole self
- Adaptive and biological responses to severe stress
- Posttraumatic stress and acute stress in the bereaved
- The social and systemic factors behind a mourner's loneliness
- Evidence-based strategies for long-lasting traumatic grief
- What good social support looks like in mourning