Lessons learned from Thanatology.

I’ve spend the last 15+ years working in the field of Thanatology. For those of you who don’t know me or haven’t heard the word Thanatology- let me explain. 

Thanatology is the scientific study of death and dying. Its also called ‘Death Education’.  It proposes that communicating about death and dying is an integral component to life and that these conversations should be taking place in homes, schools. and communities. A certified thanatologist is someone who has an expertise in the field of death and bereavement and who studies these experiences. 

When I was completing my masters degree in Thanatology I was working a full time job as a certified child life specialist on the pediatric inpatient hematology and oncology unit of a hospital. I would spend my days attending to the psycho-social-spiritual needs of children and their families, facilitating expression of emotions through play and creativity, and supporting grieving siblings and families to create lasting memories with their child. After an emotional day (which was every day) I would hop on the train into Brooklyn and spend the next 45mins to an hour catching up on the last weeks reading. The topics were always death, dying, and bereavement related. I then spent the evening in classes discussing…death, dying, and bereavement. Essentially, for 2 years of my life I studied and worked with death, dying, and bereavement every moment of the day. Even when I was home ‘relaxing’ I was still processing the events of the day or trying to understand new concepts of grief and bereavement. Needless to say, I had a bit of death and dying overload those two years.

After graduating and obtaining my CT (certified in Thanatology) I dove deeper into end of life work. Leaving my job in hospital based child life work and entering hospice as a bereavement counselor. I now teach courses in Thanatology related subjects and research the topic. 

Through all of my experience I have learned an incredible amount about the depth of grief, the ways in which resilience works, I’ve seen post traumatic growth, I’ve watched the bottomless pit of grief wash over and through my clients, and i’ve seen some miracles along the way too. Here are a few things I have learned.

1. Grief is messy & complex. There are no stages. There is no ‘right’ way to grieve. 
2. Grief lives in and is expressed through the body.
3. Anniversaries, death dates, and other socially constructed holidays can make the bereaved feel like they are back at ‘square 1’ of their grief. 
4. The death of a child is unlike any other loss.
5. Most of the children’s books on grief are not very good. Some are, and I will share those in a later post. 
6. Children grieve deeply and differently than adults. 
7. As Megan Devine says "Some things can’t be fixed. They can only be carried". 
8. The best thing you can do for someone who is grieving is to companion them. Don’t try to fix them, or make them ‘feel better’. 
9. Grief is not necessarily something you get over, but you learn to build your life around it and learn how to relate more with it. 
10. Post traumatic growth occurs more often than we realize.