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Call Us: 043 33 62041 | 043 33 62042 |     Email Us: enquiries@icps.ie  |      Ballymahon, Co. Longford

Duration: 10 Weeks
Class Time: 3 Hours per Week
Audience: Counsellors, psychotherapists, social workers, nurses, palliative care staff, funeral professionals, spiritual/pastoral carers, crisis responders.

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WEEK 1 — Introduction to Death Work: Expected vs. Unexpected Loss

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand the spectrum of death experiences

  • Differentiate anticipated, sudden, traumatic, violent, and accidental deaths

  • Recognize common assumptions and myths about death and grief

Lecture Topics

  • The psychology of mortality

  • Expected vs. unexpected death: emotional and cognitive impact

  • Stigma, shock, numbness, and disbelief

  • The role of the death worker: holding space, bearing witness, stabilizing

Practice

  • Reflective circle: personal experiences with expected/unexpected death

  • Normal vs. complicated grief recognition exercise

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WEEK 2 — Grief Theory Foundations

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand traditional and contemporary grief models

  • Recognize diverse grief trajectories

  • Identify core themes in grief following different types of death

Lecture Topics

  • Early grief theories (brief overview)

  • Modern grief frameworks (non-linear, continuing bonds, dual process)

  • Complicating factors: guilt, shock, anger, trauma, regret, relief

  • Risk factors for complicated grief responses

Practice

  • Grief mapping: identifying grief patterns

  • Case vignette analysis: expected vs. unexpected trajectories

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WEEK 3 — Expected Death: Anticipatory Grief, Preparation & Care

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand anticipatory grief for individuals and families

  • Explore emotional and relational dynamics near end-of-life

  • Support preparation, meaning-making, and final conversations

Lecture Topics

  • The slow decline: hospice, palliative care, chronic illness, dementia

  • Caregiver burden, fatigue & anticipatory sorrow

  • Relationship repair, legacy work, unfinished business

  • Preparing families emotionally for expected death

Practice

  • Legacy creation exercise

  • Supporting families through final conversations (roleplay)

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WEEK 4 — Unexpected Death: Trauma, Shock & Crisis Response

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand the unique features of sudden and unexpected death

  • Recognize trauma symptoms and the freeze-shock response

  • Provide crisis stabilization and grounding interventions

Lecture Topics

  • Sudden death: accidents, medical emergencies, suicide, homicide

  • Traumatic grief and acute stress responses

  • The role of shock, dissociation, and sensory imprinting

  • Immediate support vs. long-term therapeutic needs

Practice

  • Grounding and stabilization skills workshop

  • Crisis communication practice

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WEEK 5 — The Body, the Mind & the Physiology of Grief

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand how grief affects the nervous system and the body

  • Identify somatic indicators of traumatic grief

  • Use body-based tools to help clients regulate emotional overwhelm

Lecture Topics

  • Grief, trauma, and the nervous system

  • Somatic grief symptoms: fatigue, panic, numbness, restlessness

  • Trauma-informed stabilization: breath, orientation, grounding

  • Caring for the body after traumatic shock

Practice

  • Somatic tracking and grounding exercises

  • “Where grief lives in the body” mapping activity

Formative Assignment

  • Short paper 1,000 Words: “The emotional landscape of expected death.”

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WEEK 6 — Working with Families, Children & Diverse Relationship Systems

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand relational grief dynamics

  • Support families experiencing expected or unexpected loss

  • Adapt interventions for children, teens, adults, and elders

Lecture Topics

  • Family grief patterns and systemic impacts

  • How children understand death at different developmental stages

  • Preparing children for expected death

  • Supporting children and families after sudden death

  • The role of communication, ritual, and storytelling

Practice

  • Family meeting roleplay

  • Child-appropriate grief explanation practice

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WEEK 7 — Cultural, Spiritual & Ritual Dimensions of Death

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand cultural variations in death rituals and mourning

  • Explore spiritual and existential responses to mortality

  • Adapt practice to diverse worldviews and belief systems

Lecture Topics

  • Cultural expressions of grief and mourning

  • Rituals around expected vs. sudden death

  • Spiritual meaning-making & existential questioning

  • Respectful cross-cultural practice in end-of-life and post-death care

Practice

  • Cultural case discussions

  • Ritual and symbolic practice design

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WEEK 8 — Navigating Complicated & Traumatic Grief

Learning Outcomes

  • Recognize complex grief reactions

  • Understand factors that complicate both expected and unexpected deaths

  • Use integrative approaches to support healing

Lecture Topics

  • Secondary losses, identity disruption & reconstruction

  • Survivor guilt, anger, blame, moral struggle

  • Emotional shock vs. delayed grief

  • Trauma-informed care over the long term

  • When professional referral is needed

Practice

  • Complicated grief case formulation

  • Emotion regulation tools for trauma-linked grief

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WEEK 9 — Professional Practice: Communication, Ethics & Boundaries

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand ethical considerations when supporting the bereaved

  • Communicate sensitively with grieving individuals

  • Navigate boundaries, autonomy & emotional intensity

Lecture Topics

  • Sensitive communication after death (in person & online)

  • Ethics: confidentiality, scope of practice, safeguarding

  • Supporting individuals with strong emotional reactions

  • Working alongside medical, legal, and spiritual professionals

Practice

  • Ethical dilemma scenarios

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WEEK 10 — Practitioner Wellbeing, Integration & Final Assessment

Learning Outcomes

  • Recognize vicarious grief, burnout & emotional fatigue

  • Maintain professional resilience and self-care

  • Integrate course concepts into a coherent practice model

Lecture Topics

  • The emotional cost of working with death

  • Self-care, supervision & grounding practices

  • Emotional boundaries with clients and families

  • Course integration and professional development pathways

Practice

  • Practitioner wellbeing plan development

  • Group integration discussion

  • Reflective circle

Summative Assessment

  • 3,500 Written Assignment- Title TBC

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN WORKING WITH EXPECTED AND UNEXPECTED DEATH- (LIVE ONLINE) 60 CPD POINTS

Description

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