Mental Health Providers as Grief Survivors
Monthly Drop in Group
Third Thursday of each month from 10-11am PT
How do you mourn the death of a client?
Crisis Support Services is offering a free drop in group for all providers to explore the impact of loss on our professional and personal identities. Email ahenderson@crisissupport.org for more information.
How do you mourn the death of a client?
The Mental Health Providers as Grief Survivors drop in group was developed by myself and my colleague, Danielle Guerry, following a panel that was created for Suicide Prevention Month in 2021. I had the idea to create the panel after reading John Jordan’s Grief After Suicide and seeing my own experience as a provider reflected in the chapter on provider loss. I have lost many clients to death, some to suicide and some to accidents or homicide. Like many clinicians, this loss had a profound impact on my career and yet I had not received any supervision, education, or training on how to cope with the impact of such a loss. Instead I observed a silence from systems that were designed to be supportive, and realized that a sense of professional shame accompanied each loss.
One in three mental health providers and one in two psychiatrists will experience the death of a client, and I believe the ratio is much higher for providers working in community mental health. Yet the topic is avoided in training programs and by continuing education providers. The goal of the Mental Health Providers as Grief Survivors drop in group is to provide an opportunity for all mental health providers - therapists, case managers, line staff, shelter workers, peers, psychiatrists - to express their experience of grief, reduce shame, and provide consultation to the newly bereaved. The group is designed for providers who have experienced a loss to support one another and is not supervision or a training.
Interested parties can contact me for more information.