Healing in the Dying Time

Joan Furman, MSN, RN, AHN-BC, CET II
Presented to Nashville Psychotherapy Institute
January 9, 2009

Flow

Be,
as water is,
without friction.
Flow around the edges
of those within your path.
Surround within your ever-moving depths
those who come to rest there—
enfold them,
while never for a moment holding on.
Accept whatever distance
others are moved within your flow.
Be with them gently
as far as they allow your strength to take them,
and fill with your own being
the remaining space when they are left behind.
When dropping down life’s rapids,
froth and bubble into fragments if you must,
knowing that the one of you now many
will just as many times be one again.
And when you’ve gone as far as you can go,
quietly await your next beginning.
© Noel Frederick McInnis

The names and illnesses of clients and sometimes their sex are changed in the case studies I will present. Unless otherwise specified, much of the material in this presentation is derived from my book, The Dying Time: Practical Wisdom for the Dying and Their Caregivers. (Crown, 1997).

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Guided Imagery for Creating a Safe Place

Instruction

Use this guided imagery or visualization to create a safe place. You may create this on your own or ask your therapist or a friend to read it to you. If you tend to dissociate when you do a relaxation exercise, you might want to ask for your therapist’s help. Either way, I suggest the following process:

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How to Stay Healthy as a Nurse

One may wonder at the title of this article why I would write about nurses staying healthy, when nurses are obviously experts at helping people stay healthy. The simple answer is, we are not healthy. I am not speaking of blood pressure here; I am speaking of health in the holistic sense. What do I mean by holism? “Holism”, “healing” and “health” come from the Anglo Saxon word “haelan,” meaning “to make whole.” It is a process of bringing parts of oneself (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) together at deep levels of inner knowing, leading toward an integration and balance, with each part having equal importance and value. As wounded healers, the first step in deciding an approach to your own healing is to find what good health is for you individually.

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Visiting and Helping the Dying

Have you ever wondered how you might be helpful to someone who is dying? Or how to say or do the right thing for that person’s caregiver? You may ask, “Is there anything I can do?” And predictably and untruthfully, the answer you hear is, “No, not right now.” As a counselor, I am often asked how to be a helpful friend to a terminally ill person, whether in the hospital or at home. Here is my list of helpful guidelines, based on many years of observing exhausted caregivers and visitors who wish they could help:

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