on Death, Dying, and Grief
ITP is one of the few accredited institutions in the world that offers a broad range of Masters and Ph.D. level courses in various fields related to Transpersonal Psychology. The following is a list of courses related to death and the grief process that have been offered in the past. The particular electives offered by the Institute vary at any given time. The school tries to be responsive to the particular interests of the current student body and aims to have the curriculum reflect those interests. Information on current classes can be found in the academic catalog.
Death, Dying and Grieving Intensive
This course is designed to provide an overview and to deepen participants' understanding of the challenging issues associated with death and dying, grief and loss across the human lifespan. The class will investigate Western culture's denial of death, how differing cultural and spiritual perspectives influence one's dying experience, and the potential for the dying and grieving experience to become a catalyst for personal and spiritual transformation.
There will be opportunity and encouragement to reflect on personal issues related to death and dying, grief and loss, as well as identification of the therapeutic stance and specific skills required in counseling relationships where grief or traumatic loss is an essential feature.
The course will include lecture, discussion, videos, work in dyads and small groups, and a number of experiential exercises including drawing, insight log entries, sharing of portions of the Personal Death Awareness Survey, a "glass window" exercise, and a group sand-tray experience.
A Transpersonal Investigation into Death and Grief
This course begins to prepare us for the moment of death by examining how the deaths of others have informed and shaped our lives; by inviting an examination of our current relationship to grief and the inevitability of death; and by looking at the possibilities of living consciously up to and through our final breath.
There is a lot of fear and ignorance that lives in the world concerning grief, death, and the dying process. This course is designed to explore and expose some of the myths and misconceptions even the most educated of us unwittingly carry around. The work begins with a review of the role death and grief has played in our personal past. From there, an inquiry and investigation of the myriad ways that death appears regularly, almost unnoticed in our lives on a daily basis as a prelude or preparation, is presented. Finally, we are offered ways and means for beginning to make personal preparations for the possibility of our own death being a conscious one.
This course relies heavily on a number of readings and course assignments that will immerse the student in areas of life that typically have been closed off from close scrutiny. Many of the readings are quite provocative and suggest perspectives and possibilities that the student may never have been exposed to or considered previously. Specifically, the following areas are presented for investigation: a student's personal losses and the ways he either has or has not been sufficiently grieved to affect a healing and a developmental shift; the perspective that grief and loss have a powerful cultural component that may or may not serve an individual in his or her own personal process; the possibility that the rational mind is NOT necessary or sufficient to work effectively in this area of inquiry; and the notion that death presents itself over and over during a lifetime and that it can be practiced and rehearsed in a myriad of ways.
