Creative Interventions in Grief and Loss Therapy: When the Music Stops, a Dream Dies

✍ Scribed by Thelma Duffey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 349
• Edition: 1st
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Get the tools to help the grief that comes when a dream dies

Every person at one time or another suffers when his or her dreams are shattered. Creative Interventions in Grief and Loss Therapy: When the Music Stops, a Dream Dies provides truly innovative approaches to therapeutically help individuals work through and survive grief and loss. Leading experts explore creative interventions for common, yet emotionally devastating problems faced by those weathering the storms of grief after their dream has been destroyed. Therapists and counselors get the effective tools to creatively help people through the difficulties of dealing with death, addiction, trauma, changes in life circumstances, divorce, heartbreak, miscarriage, co-occurring mental health and substance use disorder (COD), suicide, adoption, and issues with children.

The chapters in this innovative volume cite existing research on specific grief and loss issues and illustrate a clinical application for each situation using various creative mediums such as music, writing, or ritual. Each approach can be expanded and modified with care by clinicians of all types to better help clients through the process. This resource is extensively referenced.

Topics in Creative Interventions in Grief and Loss Therapy include:

how storytelling, journaling, and correspondence can be used to process the experience of a counselor’s loss following the death of their client

using psychodrama and the utilization of empty chair techniques to address addiction related grief and loss

the use of rituals as an intervention to help clients trauma and loss during times of natural disasters

the process of gatekeeping by counselor educators

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) as an approach to help student athletes deal with life after the sport

a literary exercise to help clients work toward forgiveness after divorce

using books, songs, and projects to assist clients experiencing grief after the death of their adolescent child

creative strategies to aid clients through the grief and loss of love

effective interventions to assist clients through loss from miscarriage

using music, videography, visual arts, literature, drama, play, and altar-making in the grief process

innovative interventions for individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorder

suicide high risk factors—and a Pre-suicide Preparation Plan that mental health practitioners can implement

creative intervention for the client who is adopted using super heroes and science fiction

therapeutic storytelling for children in grief

Creative Interventions in Grief and Loss Therapy: When the Music Stops, a Dream Dies is a creative, reaffirming resource perfect for mental health professionals, therapists, counselors, social workers, educators, and students.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Half Title......Page 2
Title Page......Page 4
Copyright Page......Page 5
Table of Contents......Page 10
Preface......Page 16
Acknowledgments......Page 22
Chapter 1. When the Music Stops: Releasing the Dream......Page 24
Chapter 2. When Clients Die: Using Storytelling, Journaling and Correspondence in Times of Loss......Page 48
Chapter 3. Facing the Music: Creative and Experiential Group Strategies for Working with Addiction Related Grief and Loss......Page 64
Chapter 4. Surviving and Thriving After Trauma and Loss......Page 80
Chapter 5. The Loss of Innocence: Emotional Costs to Serving as Gatekeepers to the Counseling Profession......Page 94
Chapter 6. Healing into Life After Sport: Dealing with Student-Athlete Loss, Grief, and Transition with EFT......Page 112
Chapter 7. A Novel Approach: Using Literary Writing and Creative Interventions for Working Toward Forgiveness After Relationship Dissolution and Divorce......Page 126
Chapter 8. Soup, Stitches, and Song: Helping Parents Grieve When Their Adolescent Dies......Page 146
Chapter 9. Overcoming Heartbreak: Learning to Make Music Again......Page 158
Chapter 10. Miscarriage: A Dream Interrupted......Page 178
Chapter 11. Good Grief: The Part of Arts in Healing Loss and Grief......Page 196
Chapter 12. Keeping the Music Alive: Using the “Grief and Hope Box” with Adult Offenders with Co-Occurring Mental Health and Substance Use Issues......Page 208
Chapter 13. Shattered Dreams of Professional Competence: The Impact of Client Suicides on Mental Health Practitioners and How to Prepare for It......Page 228
Chapter 14. The American Reincarnation of the Superfluous Experience: Finding Meaning in Generation Y......Page 248
Chapter 15. Superheroes and Heroic Journeys: Re-Claiming Loss in Adoption......Page 260
Chapter 16. Coping Responses and Emotional Distress in Fathers of Children with Special Needs and “Redreaming” as a Creative Intervention......Page 276
Chapter 17. Fictive Bibliotherapy and Therapeutic Storytelling with Children Who Hurt......Page 296
Chapter 18. Saying Goodbye: Pet Loss and Its Implications......Page 310
Index......Page 320