Accompanying People with Chronic Illness or at the End of Life
Sooner or later, we will have to care for and accompany those close to us with chronic illness or in the final stages of life.
Just as we prepare to welcome people who are to be born, we can prepare to accompany our loved ones as they depart.
Guided by the poetry of Emily Dickinson, this workshop offers a journey in seven stages to help make the experience of accompanying someone at the end of life a conscious and transformative one for all involved.
The objective of the workshop is to provide a space for reflection and sharing, focused on accompanying people with chronic illness or in the last stages of life. Essential elements of this accompaniment will be addressed.
We will explore how our beliefs about death affect the way we accompany our loved ones, how our own biography and the shared biography with the person we accompany are involved in the process, and the stages that a person goes through in the final moments of life. We will also discuss the concept of “total pain” and the factors that facilitate or hinder dying in peace, the tools for accompaniment, communication, and the “silence pact” within the family environment. Finally, we will address how to take care of oneself during the accompaniment and after the death of the loved one we have accompanied.
The workshop provides content, group work, and sharing through dynamics and exercises.
It is not necessary to be currently caring for or accompanying someone at the end of life to attend the workshop.
