The Intersectionality of Grief 2023 Bereavement Conference

Saturday, 25 November 2023

Founded in 2016, we are based on the York St John University campus.

We offer high quality and affordable counselling, coaching and different mental health services to communities outside York St John University as well as free groups, drop-ins, and community projects such as our Community Language School.

We are part of the Research and Training Clinic Consortium (RTCC).

CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

Intersectionality & Bereavement

In many different cultures, how we view death and dying varies tremendously. From those cultures who revere the dead and proffer a period of morning to those whereby the deceased are honoured and buried within a very narrow time frame, how we view death and the passing of those around us is very much embedded within cultural norms and systems

Intersectionality theory in this regard takes a look at just what our experience of death actually is and considers how bereavement and the work that we do as bereavement counsellors and psychotherapists when altered can actually face and explore these differing parameters of death and dying, thereby taking the work that we have done over the past few generations in exploring our experiences of death and modernising it for the 21st century.

Dr Dwight Turner is Course Leader on the Humanistic Counselling and Psychotherapy Course at the University of Brighton, a PhD Supervisor at their Doctoral College, a psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice.

His publications include The Psychology of Supremacy (2023), and Intersections of Privilege and Otherness in Counselling and Psychotherapy (2021), which are both published by Routledge, together with several chapters in anthologies on aspects of counselling and psychotherapy, and over 50 academic papers on everything from intersectionality in psychotherapy, to dreamwork, to Afrocentric spirituality.

A leading driver in Intersectional Psychotherapy, Dr Turner is an experienced conference speaker, including numerous keynote presentations.

Dr Turner has also run workshops for a wide variety of Universities, Charities, and private organisations on issues of race, difference and intersectionality in counselling and psychotherapy.

Dr Turner can be contacted via his website www.dwightturnercounselling.co.uk and can be followed on social media on LinkedIn, Threads, or on Twitter at @dturner300.

A Compassionate Communities Approach to Bereaved People in Black Communities in North London

Cruse has been working in partnership with the Co-op, to pilot a compassionate communities approach to bereavement support, in 5 separate geographical locations. We have completed an evaluation of this work, which yields an immense amount of evidence about how people would like to be supported, at a time of their lives which can be most challenging. The presentation will share some over-arching learning, and then focus on specific lessons and feedback from our work within black communities in North London. Through the voices of bereaved people living locally, a picture of what works well with current support structures, what needs to be different, and what could be an inviting picture for the future, starts to emerge.

Andy Langford is Clinical Director for Cruse Bereavement Support, the UK's largest bereavement support charity. Andy has worked in the voluntary sector for over 25 years, within bereavement, suicide risk management, multiple needs, prison services, mental health and substance misuse. He is a currently practicing qualified Integrative Counsellor, Clinical Supervisor, Life Coach and Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, and has an MSc in Voluntary Sector Management.

Andy Langford is also a post-graduate researcher with the Open University, focusing on telephone bereavement support.

Stories and silences; an exploration of narratives about grief and loss as shared by Black, Caribbean people who were bereaved in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic

My PhD research explores the experience of bereavement within the context of Covid restrictions. It focuses on experiences from Black, Caribbean people in recognition of the disproportionate impact on minoritized communities of Covid-19 deaths and of the collective distress that many of the same communities experienced following the murder of George Floyd

The stories we tell, and those that we omit can reveal a lot about our needs, values, interpretations and expectations. In recognition of this and the importance of storytelling across many communities in the Black diaspora, I chose to undertake narrative research and to center the stories of Black Caribbean people with a view to contributing to a better understanding of the needs of bereaved individuals who are underrepresented in bereavement research.

This workshop will highlight some emerging findings from my research, including the needs and expectations of bereaved people from communities that are understandably wary of sharing their stories (and at times make a conscious decision not to).

Limor is a PhD candidate at York St John University whose qualitative research explores personally significant bereavements that were impacted by Covid restrictions. Her research utilises a narrative methodology and centres stories from people of Black, Caribbean heritage in acknowledgement of the impact of dual pandemics of Covid-19 and racism.

Limor is a woman of colour with mixed heritage, a mother, a bereaved person and a member of a number of diverse communities. She recognises that she is

influenced and enriched by multiple cultures and by a recognition of multiple ways of knowing and being. Limor has a professional background in mental health, youth work and in supporting families. She has a particular interest in decolonial and anti-racist scholarship and activism, which is reflected in her research..

The Glue Of Grief

Grief lives with Sadness (as do Depression, Love and Addiction), and sadness is about connection and lack of connection. We can experience grief in losing a loved one, a job, a home, a pet, one's youth, dreams and much more. Resulting in depression and fatigue.

The solvent to the glue is to explore one's internal judgement/limiting belief and probably aggression. Retroflected anger is what can cause a stuckness and inability to move on.

Many paths can be taken to achieve this and will be influenced by the client's vocabulary and phenomenology (also your groundedness and skill set).

Aggressive anger and grief live together. However, this is confusing for the person experiencing their grief and can challenge their belief system. For example, "How can I be angry about their death whilst I love and miss them"? There is always some anger, which can be toward self, the government, Covid, doctors, the person's behaviour or lack of self-care

Stefan is a UK therapist, counselling supervisor, international trainer, and facilitator with over 24 years of experience. He has delivered training on various topics within many environments.

Couldn’t Die Quick Enough:

Death Of An Abuser

As a Survivor of sexual abuse and working with clients for over 30 years the issue of when an abuser or those surrounding an abuser dies is often taboo. Survivors have hugely mixed feelings - which often are not “allowed” to be voiced. I thought this conference would be a great opportunity to explore together how we can support Survivors (and also other client groups) who are actually relieved when a “loved one” dies because of how they have lived.

Rebecca Mitchell is a survivor herself and also an experienced counsellor who has been working with survivors in various professional settings for 30 years. In 1993 she co-founded Into The Light Counselling and Support For Survivors (www.intothelight.org.uk) which offers counselling, courses and training to survivors and those who support them. Rebecca has published a self-help book for survivors called ‘New Shoes’ and has spoken at conferences, seminars and radio shows on recovery from sexual abuse.

She has also had several articles published in magazines including ‘Therapy Today’. Rebecca has also been nominated for Cosmopolitan Magazine Campaigner of the Year.

Supporting Refugees Using Pluralistic Bereavement Counselling Models & Theories

This workshop and presentation would be based around the paper I wrote for the advanced certificate in bereavement counselling with Dr John Wilson. The workshop would explore and consider pluralistic ways of supporting refugees using counselling models and theories and would consider how these approaches can be used, and adapted, to support displaced communities dealing with loss and mourning their shattered assumptive world.

I am a psychodynamic psychotherapist having trained at the Tavistock NHS Trust in intercultural psychotherapy. I am also a Cognitive Analytic Therapist, fully trained in EMDR. I have extensive experience of working with refugees and displaced communities.

Exploring the Impact of Cultural Narratives and Necropolitics on Disenfranchised Grief

During COVID-19

There is much still to learn about how to foster justice, enfranchisement, and resilience for the bereaved and those that support them when in times of global crisis. Research exploring the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted increased disenfranchised grief resulting from social distancing restrictions. However, as individual experiences of grief are grounded in political, cultural, historical, economic, religious, and social contexts, it is likely that cultural narratives, such as news media and government messaging, have also mediated grief during the pandemic.

This workshop will explore how powerful COVID-19 cultural narratives may have influenced individual experiences of disenfranchised grief, both for the bereaved and those that support them. We will consider the subtle power of necropolitics during the pandemic and examine how this exposed certain vulnerable populations to circumstances of slow violence and slow death, increasing mortality, eroding social solidarity, and creating further disenfranchisement. Throughout the workshop we will reflect on our own pandemic experiences, offering vital opportunities for discussion, increased understanding, empathy, and enfranchisement.

LKimberley is a person-centred counsellor primarily specialising in bereavement. While working with a local hospice during the pandemic, she noted an increase of disenfranchised grief in her client work. This experience inspired her to complete a research project that examined bereavement counsellors’ experiences of disenfranchised grief during COVID-19, which she was invited to present at the BACP Research Conference in May 2023. Kimberley’s professional interests include the areas of loss and grief, trauma, intersectional feminism, disability and inclusivity, justice, and enfranchisement.

Case-Study: Spousal Loss in Community-dwelling Older Adults

Conjugal bereavement, the period after the loss of a spouse, is considered one of the hardest transitions in the life of older adults (Naef et al., 2013), significantly impacting their health (Carr, 2018, Katsiferis et al., 2022), financial status (DiGiacomo et al., 2015) and practical wellbeing (Harvey and Miller, 2021). Capturing the concurrent challenges of the ageing process and declining health of older adults (OAs) with the effects of spousal loss is difficult.

The dominant approach in studies is to focus on psychological adjustments to bereavement and the health impacts/outcomes of grief. However, this presentation prioritises the qualitative experience of the grieving process itself thereby exploring what grieving spousal loss feels like for community-dwelling bereaved OAs.

Anna Gardner (PgDip) is an integrative psychotherapist who has worked in different settings including charities like Cruse Bereavement Services and Change Grow Live, the NHS and for an online low-cost therapy service. She has a broad range of practical experience which is built on an excellent theoretical understanding of psychological modalities and presenting issues. She stays abreast of latest developments by continuously upskilling and learning and is currently undertaking a Master of Science in Psychology of Mental Health & Well-being at the University of Wolverhampton. Anna aims to provide every one of her clients with outstanding service by interconnecting clinical excellence with a warm, safe, non-judgmental, and culturally sensitive environment for her clients.

The Bereaved Child in Adult Therapy: Finding the Missing Pieces of the

Jigsaw, Making Sense of Loss

The presentation will include slides which explore developmental theories and the impact of childhood loss. These will be brought to life using illustrations from case studies, with glimpses into the therapy room (Anonymised) We will discuss the powerful emotions generated by loss (with particular reference to bereavement by suicide). How the child makes meaning of this confusing and challenging time throughout their life at different stages of development. The case studies demonstrate how a bereaved child, denied the opportunity to express these feelings and seek explanation, may develop beliefs about themselves and the world which manifests throughout adult life and relationships.

The main focus of the session will be providing the conditions for the adult client to explore childhood loss in the therapy room, to help to fill in the 'missing' pieces, mourn and give expression to their loss and begin to re-evaluate and heal. The session will have some slides, illustrating points, some exploration of case studies, and small group work for discussion.

I have supported people who have been bereaved for many years, initially in GP practice and then as a volunteer for Cruse Bereavement Care, working with Adults, Children and Young people for 18 years and counting. I feel that understanding a Child's response to loss has offered me valuable insight when working with bereaved adults. I was Chair of the Management Group of Cruse bereavement support in Sheffield for 6 years, and represented Sheffield at Region and Nationally. I retired from my post as a bereavement

counsellor, part of the bereavement support team at a hospice were I worked for 9 years before moving to Scotland. I have had the privilege of hearing many people share their experience of loss and would like to share some of what I learned and continue to learn from them.

I currently work as a trainer for Cruse Bereavement Care, and take calls from people on the Cruse Bereavement Helpline providing in the moment emotional support. My previous career was in Healthcare and Higher education, as a Nurse and Senior Nursing lecturer.

Intersection of Mental Illness, Sexual Identity, Neurodivergent Traits and Ethnocultural Background that is neither White Anglo-Saxon, White European or comes from a Former British Colony

I want to show how mental illness gender identity, ethnicity, culture, plus Autism & ADHD, affect the internal experience of grieving by the individual themselves as well as the perception of the grieving individual by others around them

I am interested in how these factors intersect with each other and with other parts of the grieving process.

In her early 40s, Dr Wheatcraft has an impressive portfolio with dual expertise in autism & ADHD specifically, as a full Member of Royal College of Psychiatrists AND an adult diagnosed with autism & ADHD in her 4th decade.

Curating Grief: Making Sense of Courage and Loss

This workshop offers a discussion and a practical experiential activity for those living through and with grief, and for those working with clients who are exploring grief.

Understanding grief and recognising its multifaceted meanings and visible and material occurrences, in daily life, can support an openness to vulnerability and courage. This workshop invites the potential of memories and objects to be vessels for hope and healing, honouring an evolving process with which we cohabit and through which to experience life and loss.

Informed by therapeutic arts practices and posthumanism, this workshop engages the power of place, welcoming memories and material stories, and transgressing the limits of language in making sense of grief.

As a way of holding space and being present through an ethical, holistic and dialogic approach, you are invited to turn on your camera and create in response to our time together (this part of the session will not be recorded)

Please bring with you:

Essential: a pen or pencil, a note pad or drawing pad (or loose paper, card or post-it notes). Parcel string/ribbon or a small box/container (i.e. a clean and dry jam jar).

Optional: scissors, glue, newspaper/magazine cuttings, you may also like to share an object, photograph or story during our creative process.

Francesca Bernardi is a writer, advocate, artist and creative coach. She trained in Arts Therapies and Art and Design education and has worked as a teacher and artist-in-residence in schools, Alternative Provision and Further Education. She most consistently engages in multi-disciplinary research, setting up creative environments for critical participatory work with marginalised communities.

Francesca volunteers as an international board member of the Disability Without Abuse Project (Los Angeles), is founding chair of the Antonio Gramsci Society UK, an elected Global Councillor of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and Associate Member of CATA (Canadian Art Therapy Association).

Francesca is a Visiting Lecturer in Childhood Studies at Leeds Beckett University and Arts Therapies at the University of Roehampton.

Dancing with Death: Stories

and Creativity to Talk about Death & Connect with Life

In the beginning of time, we listened to stories around the ancestral fire, and these stories helped us to make sense of the world around us. They helped us connect with ourselves, our clan, and the mysteries of life and death In this interactive workshop, we will journey deep into the world of story to meet Death and get to know her better. By using a story, a safe distance is created enabling us to talk about the taboo subject of Death, in a natural way. So, when Death does appear in our lives, the situation may be easier to deal with. We will use tools from the Story Arte creative toolbox, like Gestalt therapy and different expressive arts therapies, so please have some paper and coloured pencils or crayons available.

This workshop is experiential, and participants will be invited to engage actively in the activities. Stories have probably been with us since the very beginning of humanity, accompanying us through dark times of war and plague and loss and grief and they are here to help us now.

Jennifer Ramsay is a professional storyteller and Gestalt therapist. She is specialized in art therapy, ecotherapy and psychodrama. As a group facilitator Jennifer offers unique workshops, inviting the participants to explore the world of stories creatively using elements from her Story Arte toolbox. Jennifer works with story medicine in private practice, both Online and in Story Arte, the centre for Creativity and Personal Development in the Spanish village where she lives. She has a degree in Biological Sciences and is part of the global network of Earth Storytellers. The rhythms of nature are very present as she incorporates the Celtic wheel of the year and the lunar cycles into her work. She is studying the ways of the Druids and to be a funeral Celebrant.

Website | www.storyarte.com

Family Feuds: Conflict at End-of-Life and Funerals

In this interactive workshop, we will share and explore the complex and often sensitive issues surrounding family conflicts that can arise at the end of life and during funeral arrangements and funeral services. As mental health professionals, psychotherapists, and end-of-life (EOL) caregivers, it is essential to be aware of these potential conflicts and provide support to family members during these challenging times.

We delve into key issues to generate insights and thoughtful discussions, such as:

communication breakdown

decision-making dilemmas

cultural and religious considerations

boundaries and self-care for the professional bereavement support

financial concerns for a funeral

personalisation vs. traditional funerals

family dynamics

control and decision-making for funeral arrangements

logistical issues

heightened emotional-states

miscommunication

Santou Eve Carter is the Founder of Grief Support Services Global and has 25 years of combined experience as a registered Psychotherapist specializing in Trauma and Grief, Certified Grief Educator, ordained Hospital / Hospice Chaplain and Spiritual Retreat Leader.

Santou is an international speaker offering hope of re-engagement with life across all stages of life’s losses, and guides people through trauma and grief to feel alive again.

Santou is a published writer on the topics of spirituality, non-death loss, end-of-life care and after-death grief.

As a trauma, loss and grief expert, Santou has worked in various sectors to support hundreds of families, and individuals, as well as offering mental wellbeing training to employees for staff retention and safety. She was nominated in 2021 for an NHS Hero award for numerous staff suicide preventions in her hospital workplace.

As a 2nd generation Genocide survivor and child war refugee, her transformative journey from viewing all death (and certain losses) as tragic to recognising the spiritual connections and potential gains from loss has equipped her with invaluable insights Santou uses her talent as an award-winning Classical singer, a literary artist using metaphors, and humour, among a variety of other creative approaches, to help people feel better and find their value and worth to re-connect with themselves and others again to reduce the feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Santou works online internationally as a consultant supervisor helping other therapists with the complexity of their grieving clients, as well as supporting clients herself in her private practice using her unique therapeutic-spiritual model to help grieving people through divorce, the dying process and after-death bereavement to find renewed meaning and purpose in their lives.

Free resources:

For those grieving, to download an e-guide on how to stay connected to your loved one after a passing, visit https://griefsupport co/connected/ For helping professionals who would like to hear about offerings for them, download your free e-guide here: https://griefsupport.co/workplace/ To contact Santou or for more info, visit https://griefsupport.co/

Near death Experiences and Psychosis vs. Spiritual Emergency: Role

of Antipsychotics

What is NDE, SE and convergrnces between psychosis and spiritual emergency via trauma.

PhD candidate of psychology

It Follows

I will speak about my personal experience with grief and inquire about how we grieve when the cause of our grief presents a real and persistent threat.

Lobby is spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign. Having lost his father in 2020 to the Covid-19 pandemic, he campaigns works with the campaign to fight for structural changes that would prevent the loss of life seen during Covid.

The Cosmic Shrug: Somatic Approaches to Overwhelming Emotion

Our deepest emotions - heart-breaking, gut wrenching, mind numbing- are experienced and expressed in our bodies. Understandings and practises drawn from somatically focused therapeutic approaches can help us address what may seem in the moment unbearable and overwhelming in ourselves and those with whom we work.

In this interactive and experiential workshop, we will explore some very practical and immediate measures for dealing with the impact of powerful emotion in the moment and over time. These include the cosmic shrug, the restorative sigh, and other embodied techniques such as grounding, centring, and boundary setting, along with an exploration of their underlying neurophysiological and relational basis.

I will also Introduce 2 original formulations as they apply in the context of bereavement: The Spectrum of trauma affected experience: from unbearable, through unimaginable, unthinkable, unspeakable, to engagement The Four phases of Pulsation: free pulsation, blocked pulsation, frozen pulsation, shattered or fragmented pulsation

Michael Gavin retired as a Radix Body Psychotherapist, and Somatic Trauma Therapist in 2016 after 30 years in practice. He was External Clinical Supervisor at London Underground's Counselling and Trauma Service (200716). He now offers individual mentoring sessions, and trainings integrating contemporary psychotherapy with eastern energy approaches (Qigong and Advaita Vedanta).

When Unfinished Business Gets in the Way

Sometimes we are caught unaware, and our response to loss and grief is confusing. In this workshop, we will explore potential sources of that confusion.

Using the empty chair and other creative methods, we will provide an opportunity for a deeper understanding of the intersection between unfinished business and grief.

Leila Frondigoun is a UKCP accredited Psychodrama Psychotherapist working in private practice offering individual sessions and Psychodrama groups in person and online. She is a convert to online working, having become a Certified Cyber Therapist during lockdown. She uses Psychodrama underpinned by person centred principles. She is a clinical supervisor and an apprentice trainer with the newly formed Psychodrama Scotland which offers regular Psychodrama training workshops.

Sandra Grieve is senior Trainer, person centred group psychotherapist, counsellor and psychodramatist. She has many years experience of working with a whole variety of groups, nationally and internationally in particular in Portugal and Afghanistan. She has contributed to a number of post graduate programmes in Person Centred and Humanistic counselling and Psychotherapy including those offered by University of Strathclyde, Northern School of Psychodrama, the Sherwood Institute, the University of Roehampton and the University of East London. She was senior trainer with NSP and a UKCP accredited psychotherapist. She is passionate about groups and group process and has a lively and creative approach to the work. She is also a therapist and supervisor in private practice.

Disenfranchised Grief: The Grief That Does Not Speak

Coping with grief is difficult enough when that grief can be expressed, validated and mourned with others. But what if a loss isn't acknowledged, recognised or known about? What if it and the grief that goes with it is not socially sanctioned or supported? What if there is no public ritual or the griever is not welcome at it? How much harder then... These are the sorts of circumstances in which grief becomes disenfranchised. It can arise around all sorts of losses - bereavement and nonbereavement; in many ways, and for many reasons.

This workshop will focus on disenfranchised grief in the context of bereavements. And show the capacity that therapy has to offer what's missing for a disenfranchised client. We will draw on the work of Kenneth Doka (who coined the term 'disenfranchised grief'); touch on Francis Weller's 'gates of grief' as they relate to bereavement; and take in the latest writing examining social, cultural and relational impacts of disenfranchised grief.

We will look at some causes of disenfranchised grief, how it can show up in clients and what can help them in the counselling room. We'll also consider what therapists need to do for themselves when working with clients experiencing disenfranchised grief. There is such potential for parallel processes.

The workshop will include opportunities for individual thought and discussion.

Fundamentally, I believe this is a topic we can all benefit from learning more about and understanding better.

I retired as a BACP senior accredited counsellor & psychotherapist in 2022. My experience of grief and its disenfranchised manifestation comes from: working as a counsellor; delivering training courses to family carers on dealing with loss and grief; being a funeral celebrant; my initial career as a civil servant; and my own personal life.

I've worked in/with services supporting people bereaved by murder, suicide, road deaths, and drugs and/or alcohol-related deaths. And with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, family carers, in community health partnerships, as a student counsellor, with Employee Assistance Programmes, and in private practice. Since retiring, I've set up an information website for Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) - www.this-being-highly-sensitive.info.

I delivered three events for Onlinevents on HSP-related issues (available in the OE library). And I will be delivering another series - also with Onlinevents - on disenfranchised grief. Both of these topics were major themes in my client work.

"The World that I knew had Gone": the Impact of Father-Loss on Women Bereaved as Adolescents

My research generated five core categories: A chance to mourn (or a turn to melancholia); Oedipal/Electra issues; A heart connection – psyche and soma; “The terror I would forget his face”: accessing the lost parent through memories, objects and places; and What would have been different, had father not died. I could concentrate on some or all of these categories. If you are more interested in a more experiential workshop, I could adapt the questions I used in my research HERE

My colleague Eleanor O'Leary, who started the initiative of therapeutic groups in the nursing home has sadly died this year. The actual research paper was my work. Eleanor edited it.

I am a psychologist and psychotherapist, who works in primary care and privately. I was teaching in University College Cork until september 2021, and I contributed to the MA in Art Therapy for Munster Technological University. My area of interest is in the short and long term effects of parental bereavement during adolescence.

I lost my dad at 17, when he was 44, leaving 5 children. Even at 75 that loss is still important in lots of different ways. I researched the topic for my MA in Integrative Psychotherapy.

Disenfranchised grief and the abuse of power by government ministers during the Covid pandemic

Lest anyone interpret this as Political government bashing, that isn't what we'll be presenting. Our starting point is the potential abuse of power, through misusing expertise, to gain and hold power over others. This is known as ‘expertism’. A historical example from UK politics were the claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the use of apparent expertise to take nations to war.

Expertism can oppress and disenfranchise sections of society. The ethical alternative is to use expertise in collaboration and consensus with others, as a means of mitigating rather than consolidating a position of power

We will be examining the evidence emerging from the Covid Inquiry to explore how ministers in government can use the scientific expertise of their advisors for political end

Professor Lynne Gabriel joined the academic and teaching team at York St John in 2003. She is Professor of Counselling and Mental Health, a British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) Accredited and Registered Counsellor and Psychotherapist, and a trained supervisor of practitioners working within the counselling and helping professions.

As an experienced mental health researcher and practitioner, Lynne has taught core modules on developing helper skills. She also leads on a postgraduate research year for counselling professionals seeking to develop their

practitioner-researcher skills and knowledge. Lynne supervises coaching, counselling, counselling psychology and allied health research students and Chairs the University’s Research Degree Committee.

In 2016, Lynne founded York St John Communities Centre and two years later, its associated Research & Training Clinic Consortium (RTCC). The RTCC membership is drawn from several counselling and mental health centres set in UK Universities. Lynne Chairs the Ethics and Good Practice Guidance Committee for the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy and delivers CPD on relational ethics for the counselling professions. Lynne is also a member of BACP’s Research Committee, supporting strategic development of research.

Researching counselling and mental health practice and developing both ‘practice-based’ knowledge and understanding (based on in-depth case studies) and ‘evidence-based practice’ (based on statistical data gathered through the Centre and RTCC) is something Lynne is passionate about. She enjoys collaborating with students, staff, and external partners to develop meaningful projects that have a positive impact on peoples’ lives and wellbeing. Lynne’s own research activities currently involve researching domestic abuse, in collaboration with a York St John Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology student and a regional charity, IDAS, to explore early intervention groups for young people who have been caught up in domestic violence situations. She is also working with the RTCC on a rapid review of the evidence on online counselling.

Lynne collaborates with the York St John Communities Centre Director of Bereavement Services, Dr John Wilson, to deliver projects on the impact of online bereavement support groups in the current covid-19 context. Lynne’s interest in loss and grief began early in her working life as a trainee mental health nurse when she discovered John Bowlby’s work on attachment and loss. It also grew from early shamanic practice rooted in spiritual therapy and from the experience of losing her son when he was a young adult. Journeying through the trauma of loss brought forever changed horizons.

When not teaching, researching, or working on projects, Lynne loves spending

time with her partner and friends, pottering in the garden and yard, beachcombing and connecting with nature, and losing herself in bookshops!

Dr John Wilson has specialised in bereavement and loss for 20 years, as a counsellor, supervisor and trainer. He is author of Supporting People through Loss and Grief: An Introduction for Counsellors and Other Caring Practitioners. He completed his PhD in 2000 after six years of case study research with bereaved clients. John is a visiting research fellow at York St John University and Director of Bereavement Services at York St John Communities Centre. Since early March, John has taken a close interest in adapting the outcomes of his doctoral thesis to supporting clients bereaved of a loved one from Covid-19 and those bereaved from other causes during the lockdown. With other counsellors he runs a closed support group on social media, for those bereaved during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Good Grief Trust

“TheGoodGriefTrustexiststohelpallthoseaffectedby griefintheUK.Ourvisionistohelpthosebereavedfrom dayone,acknowledgetheirgriefandprovidereassurance, avirtualhandoffriendshipandongoingsupport” CLICKTHEWEBSITEBELOWTOLEARNMORE......

www.thegoodgrieftrust.org

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