The Tigers are Getting Closer—Confronting Trauma, Grief & Loss with Creativity

Location:  Billerica, MA - Courtyard by Marriott, Billerica

A woman in India is being chased by tigers, hidden in the jungle. She can hear them getting closer as she plunges through the brush. Exhausted, she emerges from the jungle and finds herself on the edge of a cliff, where a thick vine leads over the edge. What should she do?

This ancient Indian story illustrates the predicament many of our clients find themselves in when dealing with fear, trauma, or the quiet desperation of living with loss and its aftermath. This story serves as a framework for helping clients identify their own tigers, their escape route vines, and other threats to their well-being--to discover the power and self-confidence of transforming fear into creative solutions.

This workshop will explore healing strategies that can be adapted to various types of losses such as divorce, adoption, out-of-home separation, imprisonment, suicide, homicide, terrorism, chronic or terminal illness, death of a parent, child, or sibling, etc. Workshop participants will:

• Analyze the human dilemmas of life, death, suffering, and survival from childhood through adulthood
• Identify the dynamics that block their clients' abilities to handle life's challenges
• Apply techniques and activities that assist in healthy adaptations to life and loss
• Develop a range of creative survival strategies to use in their work

Practical strategies in this workshop can be used in clinical, educational, health care and home settings. Workshop format includes lecture, discussion, cases, artwork, poetry, stories, music, and movement.

Instructor:

Virginia Fry, M.A., is the Director of the Hospice and Palliative Care Council of Vermont, adjunct faculty at four Vermont colleges, and consultant to three New Hampshire hospitals. She also consults to schools and hospices throughout the United States and in Germany. With 30 years of experience working with hospice patients and families, Ms. Fry trains and consults nationally and internationally and is the author of the award-winning book, Part of Me Died Too. She is an original and dynamic presenter with a wealth of practical knowledge and personal experience.