When Dying Is Well Accompanied: The Quest for Meaning in Terminal Illness
What's In It For Me
(previously known as Pre-Death Grief and Loss Series - Quest for Meaning in Terminal Illness)
In the face of the bad news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness, patients often have to face both their own impending death and separation from their loved ones through different dying trajectories, which can be swift or protracted. This complex emotional journey often triggers existential crisis, death anxiety and pre-death grief in a way that calls for professional psychological attention. In this workshop, we will examine terminal illness and its implications from the 4-Dimensional Framework of Meaning Reconstruction that reviews the event story of the illness, the relational story between patients and their significant ones, the personal story of the self, and the existential story of life. We will also address death anxiety, distress related to unfinished business with significant people in life, and pre-death grief experienced by those diagnosed with a terminal illness. Through various small group practices and discussion, learners will become acquainted with relevant meaning-focused intervention tools to facilitate conversations about life and death and life review with these clients, and to preserve and enhance their sense of dignity, as they learn to cope with their dying trajectory and face their eventual death.
Course Objectives
- Examine the threat of terminal illness and its implications from a 4-dimensional meaning reconstruction framework;
- Address pre-death anxiety, preparatory grief and unfinished business distress that are often experienced by the person with a terminal condition; and
- Implement meaning-oriented techniques to facilitate the quest for meaning in the face of terminal illness and impending death.
Who Should Attend
Counsellors, healthcare workers, social workers, psychologists, teachers and principals, pastoral staff, and people involved in the helping profession .
Course Duration
Upcoming Schedule: 13 - 14 July 2026
Total Training Duration (Hour)
2 days, 9am - 5pm (14 training hours)
Course Outline
- Terminal illness as a crisis of meaning through a 4-dimensional framework
- Conversations about life and death through Walking the Labyrinth of Life
- Use of Virtual Dream Stories to explore death anxiety and preparatory grief
- Life review through curating My Life Exhibits
- Application of My Life Footprints to review significant connections in life
- Practice of Feast of My Life as a form of life celebration and legacy building
- Application of various assessment tools and conversational guides to examine the degree of meaning crisis and evaluate the patient’s sense of dignity
Certification Obtained and Conferred by
Participants who meet 75% class attendance will be awarded a Certificate of Completion by Portland Institute for Loss and Transition & Academy of Human Development.
For certification enquiries, please email carolyn@portlandinstitute.org
Medium of Instruction & Trainer
Presented by Portland Institute Grief Training Faculty
Dr Carolyn Ng, PsyD, FT, MMSAC, RegCLR maintains a private practice, Anchorage for Loss and Transition, for training, supervision and therapy in Singapore, while also serving as an Associate Director of the Portland Institute. Previously she served as Principal Counsellor with the Children’s Cancer Foundation in Singapore, specialising in cancer-related palliative care and bereavement counselling. She is a registered counsellor, master clinical member and approved supervisor with the Singapore Association for Counselling (SAC), a Fellow in Thanatology with the Association of Death Education and Counselling (ADEC), USA, as well as a consultant to a cancer support and bereavement ministry in Sydney, Australia. She is a trained end-of-life doula and advanced care planning facilitator. She is also trained in the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) by the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, USA, community crisis response by the National Organisation for Victim Assistance (NOVA), USA, as well as Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) by LivingWorks, Canada. Her recent writing concerns meaning-oriented narrative reconstruction with bereaved families, with an emphasis on conversational approaches for fostering new meaning and action.
Dr Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, maintains an active consulting practice, and directs the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition, which provides global onsite and online training in grief therapy. Neimeyer has published 37 books, including Living Beyond Loss: Questions and Answers about Grief and Bereavement and New Techniques of Grief Therapy, and serves as Editor of Death Studies. The author of over 600 articles and book chapters, he has been recognized in the Stanford University/Elsevier list of Top 2% Scientists in the world, with over 60,000 citations to his work according to Google Scholar. Neimeyer is currently working to advance a more adequate theory of grieving as a meaning-making process. In recognition of his contributions, he has been made a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and given Lifetime Achievement Awards by both the Association for Death Education and Counseling and the International Network on Personal Meaning.
Funding Information
NCSS members and MSF-funded Social Service Agencies are eligible to apply for PCG pre-approved funding, with the application outcome expected in March 2026. (subjected to screening and approval after registration).
Course Pre-Requisites
Price
| Discount / Promotion Fee (Apply to original fee only) |
Fee Payable After Discount / Promotion | |
|---|---|---|
| Before GST | With GST (9%) | |
| Early Bird Fee *Refer to EB closing date below | $900.00 | $981.00 |
| Course Fee Payable | ||
| Original Fee | Before GST | With GST (9%) |
| Course Fee | $975.00 | $1,062.75 |
Early Bird Fee (before GST): S$900 (register & pay 1st June 2026)
* Early Bird Discount will be reflected during payment checkout / billing invoice
NCSS members and MSF-funded Social Service Agencies are eligible to apply for PCG pre-approved funding, with the application outcome expected in March 2026. (subjected to screening and approval after registration).
Please note that prices are subjected to change.