Personal Loss Lifeline and Reflection Paper
Description: The purposes of this assignment are to heighten your awareness of your personal losses and grieving style, to provide you with the opportunity to personally relate to the course readings, and to help you to identify the ways in which these personal experiences may impact your clinical social work practice.
1. Construct a loss lifeline that identifies calendar years from birth to the present that coincides with any significant losses that you have experienced on poster board or paper. This should include both death-related and non-death related losses (e.g., loss of health, loss of a job opportunity, loss of a relationship, loss of status, loss of reputation, etc.), as outlined in the textbook and discussed in lectures. You should identify your date of birth and also your age at the time of each loss on your loss lifeline.
2. Reflect on the loss life line. Once you have identified each loss, take some time to explore each loss by thinking about what was happening at the time (i.e., where you were, what you were doing, your predominant emotional tone, how others responded to you, how you grieved and how that changed over time) and how you responded to each loss. You might consider the following questions. What do you remember about the loss experience? What did you feel and how did that change over time? How did you cope? How did you grieve? How did others in your environment respond to your grief and how did that affect your experience? To what extent are your still experiencing grief and where are you at in the process?
3. Make connections to course readings and outside journal articles. Reflect upon the ways in which your experience with loss and your grief response relates to the course reading in terms of your age and development, the way that you coped with your loss, and how you grieved over time (i.e., relate it to theories of grief and theories of coping with grief). Determine your grieving style and any patterns you notice in your way of responding to loss.
4. In a 6-8-page report, address the following (use the following Subject Headings):
a) Brief Summary of Losses: briefly (1-2 pages) highlight/summarize your losses, noting the types and scope of loss you have experienced.
b) Relevance and Connection to Course Readings/Journal Articles: (3-5 pages) The major portion of your paper should describe ways that you made connections to the course reading and peer-reviewed journal articles (no less than 3) as suggested in point 3 described above (cite relevant readings/content that relate to your experience, your age, level of development, coping response, how you grieved and theories of grief and coping with grief); and identification of which theoretical framework most closely resembles your experience, providing evidence for and against your conclusions; How did the readings and journal articles illuminate your understanding of your loss/grief experiences?
c) Professional Implications: (1-2 pages) Reflect on the extent to which your own losses may impact how you relate to grieving clients and the extent to which they may influence your ability to be present and non-biased (i.e., address the following questions as well: Are there particular client situations that may be more challenging for you to work with, given your history of loss? Have you identified any complicated or enduring grief that may need to be addressed prior to working with clients who are experiencing loss?)
Be prepared to share some of your findings in class.
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