Grief and Loss

Catalog description

This course prepares M.S.W. students for social work practice with clients, along the lifespan, who are experiencing grief as a result of death, illness, disability, loss of home, loss of country of origin, divorce, foster care, and other more symbolic losses. Special consideration for the myriad losses due to the COVID pandemic will be included throughout the course. Theories of attachment and loss are used as a framework for assessing grief reactions in clients in different developmental stages. Special emphasis in this course will also focus on rituals and theories of loss and grief from a world-cultural perspective. Therapeutic interventions are examined and applied through case discussions and experimental exercises that will incorporate a multi-cultural understanding of grief and loss. The use of teletherapy will be explored in general and specifically to grief and loss. Throughout the course, students will examine their own natural reactions and fears regarding loss and grief to increase their awareness of various means of the self-care necessary to successfully work in the field of social work where loss and grief are ever-present clinical themes. Formerly offered as HBEL 5352.