Excerpt from a YouTube discussion about counseling strategies to help family members (here, a wife) accept a loved one’s impending death. The speaker advises counselors that they may work directly with the family member, share their observations, and model gentle language that gives permission for the dying person to 'let go.'
In that circumstance, if I am the family counselor and I also have a relationship not just with the person who's dying, but also the other. The wife in this circumstance. Is there another way to do this or other ways to consider?
Sure. Yeah. In that case, you really have permission to go to the wife and to share also what you're experiencing, because they're your client as well. And it's going to be a mutual benefit, possibly, if she can let go and you're going to support her awareness to see. I don't know if you know, but actually, George is ready. And actually that's really a state that I'm hoping I'll be able to get to. Now, I know this must be really difficult for you, maybe it's impossible even for you, not to just want to have him stay alive for every second possible. But I want you to be aware of the fact that. That it might be easier for him if you actually said to him, sweetheart, I want you to stay as long as possible, but I accept if you need to go and that you help her, him have the words and the understanding, if it's not going to be totally violating. And I think that's our responsibility to gently, with sensitivity, have that conversation.
