A reflective transcript excerpt advising counselors/therapists on how to remain emotionally present with dying patients. Key points: "being in your heart" means accessing a felt, unconditional holding (e.g., love for a child or pet); recognize when you cannot access that state and respond with self-compassion; enter encounters with the intention to be present rather than to fix or relieve death; bring attention to the present when distracted.
You mentioned the importance of being in your heart, that the counselor, the therapist needs to find that inside themselves. Can you explain more about what you mean? Well, by being in your heart, I really mean the counselor needs to look in their life as to what they themselves can understand that to me. So it might be going back to the time where you most loved your dog or you most loved your wife or your husband and you were a parent and you were holding your child in your arms. That's probably for a parent, the easiest image, assuming that they have a decent relationship with their child and that kind of unconditional holding is what I mean by being in your heart. And to whatever degree a person has that capacity, that's what they're going to bring. And a person. I'm a counselor, I am a person and I find myself unable to access my heart or even in the anticipation I know I see on my agenda. I'm going to visit someone who's in this terribly difficult circumstance and I can't find my heart. What advice would you give me approaching the situation like that about how I can be the most effective given my state, or how can I find my state? Well, first thing is so often when you recognize that you're not in your heart, it means you probably are. It probably means that you're in a state of feeling helpless or empty or not sure how to be useful. And that is a beautiful state to be in. It's probably more dangerous if you're sure you are in your heart than it is if you're aware you're not in your heart. Then I think the other thing is you go in with some kind of an encouragement that may I be in my heart as much as possible. And a certain amount of actually a lot of self compassion is needed in this experience too. Nobody goes in here as the champion expert when you're going to be with somebody that's dying. So you're going in recognizing, may I show up as much as possible to whatever's needed, may I recognize that I can't relieve this person of their death and that nobody else can either. And just recognizing that you want to be in your heart is the heart itself. Now if you're distracted and you're thinking about the Lakers or thinking about some other sports event and you're really just in your mind, then you do need, of course, to bring your attention to the present. And in that sense you need to recognize that if you're going to be with somebody that's dying, you need to be ready to dedicate your tension.
