- February 22, 2011
- 5:43 pm
- Kristin Hochkammer
- no comments
Separation and Loss Across the Life Span Workshop
Institute on Aging and Intergenerational Study and Practice (IAISP)
Featured: Sharon Williams, Holly Nelson-Becker, and Marcia Spira
Loyola University always has great opportunities for workshops and seminars outside of the classroom, so many that it impossible to attend each one that I find interesting. My internships in the past two years have been great about encouraging me to attend these opportunities as part of my learning experience as a student. The most recent workshop that I attended was the separation and loss across the life span workshop held at the Water Tower Campus. This workshop was especially beneficial to me as a student in the older adult’s certificate program at Loyola. It was also very helpful in preparation for the support group that I will be running in the next month as part of my internship. There were many others in attendance at the workshop, including current and prospective students, and others coming for informational purposes or their CEU credits. This workshop was free for students, current and alumni.
We began with an open discussion of the events of 9/11. Members of the audience and the speakers shared their experiences and we discussed how our experiences were different and what made them so different. What I found especially interesting were the comments and views from others that were in another country during the time of 9/11 or were not born in the U.S. but were in the U.S. during this time. For example, a statement was made on the lines of “…the audacity for someone to make an attack on the United States”. I didn’t think much about this comment until a great discussion was brought up about how other countries are experiencing extreme violence on a daily basis, many where U.S. soldiers are stationed. Yet, many people from the U.S. were appalled by the attacks on the U.S. The statements and discussion made a lasting impression on me.
Another great discussion to me was how the world of technology has been changing the ways in which we express our sympathy to others after a loss. For example, many years ago it may have been traditional and common for someone to write a sympathy letter when someone has passed. Now, it is becoming more and more common for people to send and receive sympathy messages through emails, text messages and messages through social networking sites. We then talked about the different theories and popular viewpoints surrounding separation and loss. Some highlights for me included the discussion around the differences between grief and depression, Freud’s Psychoanalytic perspective on loss, Bowlby and separation anxiety, the Dual Process Theory, Continuing Bonds Theory, and Kubler Ross’s five stages of grief .
This was a great introduction to separation and loss and included great resources for further exploration. I was able to take a lot from this seminar and I hope to translate it to the work with my clients and their family members as well as a lot of great information to use for my upcoming group with older adult caregivers.
