ADEC offers a selection of Specialty Workshops on a variety of topics related to the field of thanatology. These specially designed courses provide an in-depth look at the topics and issues of greatest importance in grief and bereavement.
Specialty Workshops are scheduled for Tuesday April 25 and/or Wednesday April 26 before the main conference, Thursday April 27 through Saturday April 29.
MEMBERS: To receive your ADEC Member Discount, you must be logged into your account when you order. Otherwise, you will be charged Non-Member rates.
NON-MEMBERS: Want to join? Click here.
For 2023, these workshops will be presented in person, only.
ADEC reserves the right to cancel any specialty workshop that does not attain minimum registration numbers. Registrants in a cancelled course will be informed and given the option to choose another session or receive a refund.
Full Day - In Person
Wednesday April 26, 2023
9:00 am - 4:45 pm ET / New York
6 CEU's available (additional fee)
Making Meaningful Conversations Possible
Significant losses – both on an individual and a societal level – challenge us at our core. Loss of loved ones, but also life transitions such as loss of perspective, dreams, or ambitions that are meaningful to us, touch us on an existential level. The duality of the grief that emerges from these losses, with the sometimes-all-consuming intrusiveness of the loss, and at the same time trying to meet the demands of a world that does not stop turning, asks us to integrate this loss in our life story. Beyond that, grief invites us, considering this loss, to live our calling even more than before. Our calling: that is the answer to the questions of who we are and what meaning we bring to the world. ‘Calling’ is the last theme on the Transition Cycle.The Transition Cycle illustrates that the way in which we relate to other people and to matters that are important to us form a cyclical pattern. Although we are often used to laying out our life experiences linearly in time, the way in which we engage in relationships and connect to each other is made up of repeating patterns. In each new relationship themes from previous relationships repeat, and in each relationship our earliest experiences resonate from back when we formed our very first relationships. These themes have their place in the Transition circle, because when there are changes there is always loss and parting, which challenge the themes underlying our relationships. By honouring our calling, we can no longer hide from the responsibility assessing these themes with a true inclination to bond to people, places and goals we encounter.
By turning to our secure bases in grief for comfort and (self)care, for support, and to dare not only to go on but even to go beyond, we can transform loss and thereby ourselves and the communities and societies of which we are part. Right in our deepest ordeal lies the test of our calling. That is where we find the inspiration for the meaning of our true contribution to the world. Secure bases help us – through dialogue – develop a growth mindset and our ability to consciously focus our mind’s eye on aspects that assist in meaning reconstruction. Rediscovering our calling and reconnecting with it in the wake of loss contributes to the possibility of post-traumatic growth.
Learning Objectives:
- Connect on a deeper level with their own context of secure bases and help clients do the same
- Put in practice more advanced dialogue techniques in the therapeutic context
- Articulate roots of their calling connected with own life transitions and help clients do the same
Presenter: Jakob van Wielink
Jakob van Wielink, MA is a friend and a father who helps people find and live their calling on their journey towards healing. Jakob is a founding partner at De School voor Transitie (‘The School for Transition’), a training institute for leadership development, counseling and therapy in the Netherlands. Jakob serves as a faculty mentor for the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition. He is a member of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement.
Next to working as an individual grief counselor for executives, Jakob trains senior coaches, counsellors and therapists in the field of attachment, grief and meaning reconstruction.
Jakob appears frequently in Dutch national media as a consultant on themes of transition, grief and leadership. He works with both Dutch and international companies. Jakob served as the Ira Nerken International Speaker at ADEC’s Annual Conference in 2022.
MEMBERS: To receive
your ADEC Member Discount, you must be logged into your account when you order.
Otherwise, you will be charged Non-Member rates.
NON-MEMBERS: Want to
join? Click here.
Half Day - Morning - In Person
Wednesday April 26, 2023
9:00 am - 12:15 pm ET / New York
3 CEU's available (additional fee)
Morning Option 1: Understanding the Needs of Grieving Children from Underserved Communities
4/10/203 This session has been cancelled. Please choose either Morning Option 2, Morning Option 3, or the Full Day (higher price).
Morning Option 2: SURVIVANCE: A Model of Grief Care for LGBTQAI+ and BIPOC Youth
Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI), NYC, works to provide a safe and supportive environment for LGBTQIA+ youth in NYC and around the country. HMI offers a free comprehensive package of services to foster the participants’ healthy development. The therapeutic modalities used at HMI were chosen to accommodate the specific needs of the community, consisting primarily LGBTQIA+ BIPOC youth who have suffered trauma. Grief counseling takes up a unique shape, imbued with liberation-focused healing practices titled SURVIVANCE, a harm reduction approach with cultural considerations. In this half-day workshop, participants will engage in experiential learning of the SURVIVANCE interdisciplinary model and reflect on the place of working through traumatic loss within a community-centered setting. Special emphasis will be put on the intersection of oppression and mourning of QTPOC (Queer, Trans, People of Color) adolescents and young adults connected disenfranchised and collective grief. This participatory intervention invites the clinicians’ identities and lived experience as a way of modeling.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will be able to recount the pillars of the HMI SURVIVANCE model to grief counseling for LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC youth. Investment in the evaluation of the model to understand what works and what can be improved to better meet the bereavement needs of LGBTQAI+ youth in preparation for replication.
- Participants will be able to observe needed accommodations in therapeutic modalities for specific populations in a community-centered setting utilizing liberation-focused and healing social justice oriented practices.
- Participants will be able to discuss the impact of oppression, including racism, sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, and homophobia, on the process of mourning through a lens of empowerment and strength-based practice.
Presenter: Adam D-F Stevens, MA, RDT
Adam D-F Stevens (they|them), MA, RDT. They are a Registered Drama Therapist (RDT) who works at the Hetrick-Martin Institute, a non-profit organization that serves LGBTQAI+ youth in NYC. Their role includes supporting queer youth in transforming their loss and grief into unapologetic, abundant joy and empowerment. Previously, Adam worked at the Cooke School & Institute, NYC, guiding young people with developmental and intellectual differences. They are alumni of Marymount Manhattan College and New York University where their areas of study included Theatre Arts and Drama Therapy respectively. Adam serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Creative Arts Therapy Programs at Antioch University in Seattle, and New York University and Marymount Manhattan College in NYC. They have sat on the Board of Directors for the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA) as Chair of the Cultural Humility, Equity, and Diversity Committee. Adam is a political and social justice theatre practitioner who has performed, directed, and choreographed throughout North America.
In 2020, they were named Artistic Director for the Collideoscope Repertory Theatre Company (CRTC) whose mission is to advance racial justice and healing through artful affinity and performance. Adam works as a diversity, equity, and inclusion specialist supporting organizations and schools worldwide. In 2021, they were invited to be Drama Therapist-in-Residence with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Adam has more recently connected with several Off-Broadway and university theatre companies as an actor’s advocate and emotional wellness consultant. Inspired by Robert Landy’s Role Method and Role Theory in drama therapy, Adam has presented on and is developing the Black American Role Taxonomy, or BART, offering space for Black clients to reclaim racialized roles and deconstruct stereotypes appropriated by privileged others. Adam's superpowers are rooted in the fantastical forces of creativity and love.
MEMBERS: To receive your ADEC Member Discount, you must be logged into your account when you order. Otherwise, you will be charged Non-Member rates.
NON-MEMBERS: Want to join? Click here.
Nurses and caregivers face tremendous stresses, accumulating into fatigue and burnout. Burnout not only may deprive social services of nurses and caregivers, but may destroy caregivers’ own health while lowering the quality of care that they provide. Fatigue may derive from workload, human relations, and feelings of frustration; it may also come from over-identification with patients—often called “compassion fatigue.” Social services must decide priorities in allocating personnel and support, devoting resources to the places where they are most needed, and protecting their personnel from burnout as far as possible. Caregivers must find a balance between protecting themselves by being too cold or distant, and providing so much tender-loving care for their patients that they exhaust themselves in the process.
The first hour of this workshop introduces results of statistical research and experiments that can help managers to identify incipient burnout in advance, to prioritize their resource allocation, and help caregivers to understand how to strike that critical balance between too much and too little compassion. This is followed by 30 minutes Questions & Answers and a Stretch Break.
After introducing theories, answering questions, and a break, we turn to practices for dealing with stress burnout and compassion fatigue. Specifically, we address issues of diet, exercise, and sleep; of changing perspectives through dialogue and diary-keeping; of meditation/relaxation, and applications of therapeutic touch. Participants are advised to bring pencils and to wear comfortable clothing.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will know what burnout and compassion fatigue are, and why they matter.
Participants will learn tools and signs we can use to detect burnout in advance.
Participants will experience some steps to reduce burnout/compassion fatigue and be able to practice them.
Participants will know how diet, sleep, exercise, and thought-patterns affect their own and others’ burnout.
Presenter: Carl Becker, PhD, DPsych
Carl Becker, PhD, DPsych received his PhD on Death and Dying from the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii. Teaching philosophy at SIU Carbondale, he helped establish SIU-C’s Mortuary Science and Funeral Service department. In 1983 he moved to Japan, where he taught at National Osaka, Tsukuba, and Kyoto Universities. In 1986 he received the SIETAR Award for Cross-Cultural Understanding, in 2009, the Honda award from the Emperor for his studies of death and dying, and in 2018, an Honorary Doctorate in Psychology from the Moscow Graduate Institute of Psychoanalysis for his work counseling dying patients and bereaved clients.
Now Professor and Vice-Director of the Policy Science Unit at Kyoto University's School of Medicine, Becker leads a national survey of bereavement and support for terminal patients and suicidal survivors. He serves on the editorial boards of Mortality, Journal of Near-Death Studies, Journal for the Study of Spirituality, and other medical journals.
MEMBERS: To receive your ADEC Member Discount, you must be logged into your account when you order. Otherwise, you will be charged Non-Member rates.
NON-MEMBERS: Want to join? Click here.
Half Day - Afternoon - In Person
Wednesday April 26, 2023
1:30 pm - 4:45 pm ET / New York
3 CEU's available (additional fee)
Afternoon Option 1: Art Therapy: Creating A Grief Narrative Without Words
Expressive therapies are used across the globe to engage both sides of the brain and the mid-brain, helping grievers express emotions and thoughts when words fail. There is profound power in sharing a narrative, and in an effort to meet people where they are, the use of expressive therapies bridges the gap between those who are comfortable sharing their stories through words and those who find that exceedingly difficult. While no one has the choice of whether grief will come to them in their lives, they do choose how to respond, and this specialty workshop will assist helping professionals to consider how creating art can be used to support and encourage the grief response in support groups and individual counseling for those dealing with illness, impending death, tragedy, and loss.
The format will be interactive, include real life examples, and group member testimonial. In this experiential workshop, participants will gain information about the benefits and cautions of using art therapy to assist in the healing process and learn firsthand how to use mask making to process grief reactions, coping and meaning marking.
No art skills are required to participate in this workshop and all supplies to engage in the emotions of grief mask project will be provided.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe what it means to “craft the experience of grief” according to Lorraine Hedtke and John Winslade.
- Summarize the benefits and cautions in using art making in individual and group sessions to ensure your abilities and responsibilities in providing specific art therapy interventions to individuals and groups who are bereaved.
- Implement art therapy interventions as a therapeutic tool with individuals and group members to facilitate the physical, behavioral, cognitive, and emotional experience a creative grief response.
Presenters: Elissa Berman, MAEd, LPCC-S; Misty Ramos-Saviano, ATR, LPCC-S, EMDR, ACTP
Elissa Berman, MAEd, LPCC-S. As a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Supervisor, Elissa Berman, M.A.Ed. L.P.C.C – S, counsels people facing grief and loss in all aspects of their lives. She has learned that people do not show up to counseling because they found something; rather each person who has the courage to attend counseling has lost something.
Whether it be someone they loved, a job, a marriage, a dream, their self-esteem or their health, people walk in with loss as a component to their life experience. Elissa serves individuals, couples and families and her background in grief has benefited clients in a myriad of ways, primarily to guide and companion them to integrate and transform their loss into meaningful and transcendent experiences.
Her background is diverse, with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a bachelor’s degree biblical texts, leading to a master’s degree in education and a master’s degree in counseling. Elissa combines her passion for education and counseling into significant and compassionate professional work.
In addition to being the Director of Bereavement Services at Lifebanc (Northeast Ohio’s Organ, Eye, and Tissue Recovery Organization), she maintains a thriving private practice at Ellen Casper and Associates in Beachwood, Ohio. She teaches locally and nationally on a myriad of topics including, Self-Care and Resilience, Post Traumatic Growth, Writing as a Means of Healing, Mindfulness and Grief and Death and Bereavement Across Cultures to name a few. Elissa is known for her sense of humor, depth of knowledge and experience and willingness to be transparent in my teaching.
Misty Ramos-Saviano, ATR, LPCC-S, EMDR, ACTP
Misty Ramos-Saviano, ATR, LPCC-S, EMDR, ACTP has worked with grieving families as an educator, art therapist and counselor since 2014. She founded P.A.L.S. for Healing nonprofit mental health organization where she serves adults, children, and families individually and in support groups. Misty writes curriculum, creates and facilitates art therapy workshops, crisis response in schools and the community, and training locally and nationally. Misty obtained her master’s degree in art therapy and counseling from Ursuline college, EMDR training from the humanitarian assistance program, military mental health training from Star Behavioral Health, and advanced certified trauma practitioner certification from the national institute of trauma and loss in children. She specializes in using trauma informed therapies to assist individuals and families who have been exposed directly or indirectly to trauma and/or loss. She helps families through divorce, substance use, parental incarceration, military deployment, domestic violence, sexual abuse, grief, and foster care.
MEMBERS: To receive your ADEC Member Discount, you must be logged into your account when you order. Otherwise, you will be charged Non-Member rates.
NON-MEMBERS: Want to join? Click here.
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