5 Provide spiritual care to persons experiencing loss and grief.
For PPS 5 the candidate must demonstrate competency with the theories of loss and grief beyond just death. I’ve already mentioned the field of Thanatology but I cannot recommend enough how those studies have direct and effective import into the work of chaplaincy, there is a whole other field adjacent to chaplaincy that is diverse and interdisciplinary. For more information consult the Association of Death Education and Counseling (ADEC).
Get yourself a copy of Philippe Ariè’s work Western Attitudes Toward Death and give it a read. If only for the last chapter describing the current state of forbidden death in Western thought, “Death, so omnipresent in the past that it was familiar, would be effaced, would disappear. It would become shameful and forbidden.”[1] For a much broader understanding of the competency, ADEC has recently published an updated handbook. Chapters nine and ten document the definitions of the many types of loss, grief, and mourning along with covering foundational grief theories. One which resonates with me is Therese Rando and the “six “R” model” for the tasks of mourning but you would do well to find one that makes sense to you.[2]
One of the areas I recommend paying special attention to is disenfranchised grief. Doka defines disenfranchised grief as when the “right to grieve” is removed or hindered from one’s loss. [3] Examples could include the grieving of an ex-spouse or within non-heteronormative relationships.
[1] Ariès, Philippe, Western Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 85.
[2] Heather Servety-Seib and Helen Whipple, eds. Handbook of Thanatology, 3rd ed. (Minnesota, MN: Association for Death Education and Counseling, 2021), 274.
[3] Thomas Attig, “Disenfranchised Grief Revisited: Discounting Hope and Love.” Omega (Amityville, N.Y. Online) 49, no. 3 (2004): 197.
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