Grief Counselling Online Course

This course provides a sound basis for understanding and working with people who are experiencing grief. Develop your understanding of appropriate practices and procedures for Grief Counselling. Topics covered include: Nature and Scope of Grief, Stages of Grief, Grief and different age groups, Adjustment to Bereavement, Abnormal Grief, Preparing for Bereavement, Long-term Grief and more.

This course is suitable for anyone in the situation of providing support to those who are grieving and anyone wanting to gain a deeper understanding of the grieving process.

Course Aims:

• Describe the nature and scope of grief and bereavement counselling and individuals’ attitudes to grief.
• To identify through continuing exploration, the meaning and responses of a wide range of loss situations, taking cultural variations into account.
• To describe the different ways that children may respond to grief and to develop appropriate strategies for helping them to cope.
• Determine the different ways that adolescents may respond to grief and to examine how these perspectives have translated into counselling practice
• Describe the different means through which individuals are able to adjust to loss and to consider other options available to them.
• Describe when an individual’s response to grief may be considered abnormal and to discuss methods of assisting such individuals.
• Define the different ways of preparing for grief and bereavement and to consider social, cultural and psychological perspectives.
• Describe separation, loneliness, the effects of long-term grief and long-term counselling support strategies.

Detailed Course Outline

There are 8 Lessons in this course:

1. Nature and Scope of Grief and Bereavement

• • Understanding loss
  • Society’s views on loss
  • Coping with loss
  • Knowing what to expect
  • Mourning
  • Living with grief
  • Terminology
  • Types of grief

2. Stages of Grief

• • Common stages
  • Duration of grief
  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance
  • Tasks of mourning
  • Criticism
  • Mourning process in Judaism (case study)
  • Response to loss and grieving
  • Not coping

3. Grief and Children

• • Grief for children up to three years old
  • Grief for 3 to 6 year old
  • Grief for 7 – 8 year old
  • Grief for children 9 years and older
  • Preparing a child for death
  • Sudden death
  • After a death
  • Funerals
  • Typical child responses to grief
  • Case studies
  • Feelings about suicide
  • Supporting a grieving child
  • Help from family and friends
  • Guidelines for letting children know what is and is not acceptable
  • Children with serious problems with loss and grief

4. Grief and Adolescents

• • Grief as a unique adolescent experience
  • Adolescent responses: remoteness, anger, abuse, tears, egocentrism, sense of universality, etc.
  • Helping the grieving adolescent
  • Difference between adolescent and adult grief experience

5. Adjustment to Bereavement

• • What is grief
  • Accept the loss
  • Feel the pain
  • Adjust, Adapt, etc.
  • Grief counselling
  • Counsellors response and intervention

6. Abnormal Grief

• • Complicated grief reactions
  • Worden’s categories of complicated grief reactions
  • Causes of abnormal grief
  • Post traumatic stress disorder
  • Symptoms and treatment of PTSD
  • Loss of children in pregnancy: ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage
  • Supporting people with complicated grief
  • Managing grief after a disaster
  • The course of bereavement
  • Complications of bereavement
  • Traumatic grief
  • Risk factors for complications of bereavement
  • Treating bereaved individuals
  • Role of the professional in early stages of disaster bereavement

7. Preparing for Grief and Bereavement

• • Socio cultural influences on the grief process
  • Grief and terminal illness
  • Preparing for an approaching death
  • Practical preparations
  • Emotional responses of the dying
  • Responses of family and friends

8. Future Outlook and Long-Term Grief

• • Psychological aspects of long term grief
  • Chronic illness and grief case study
  • Disabled child case study
  • Strategies for handling long term grief: guided mourning, support groups, medication, etc.

When you have completed the lessons of your Certificate course, you will be given the option of taking the optional exam. It’s okay if you don’t want the exam, we still issue your Careerline Certificate. For Advanced Certificates however, the exam is compulsory (per module) and are included in the course fee.