ATTENDing to Grief and Grievers
In 2010, I proposed an alternative to diagnosing grief as pathology because I saw a dangerous trend: Grieving parents, in particular, were being prescribed multiple medications for their bereavement experience despite absolutely no empirical evidence of its efficacy (Cacciatore, 2011).
As a long time meditator, I knew that one of the things that helped so many grievers was teaching them mindfulness, turning toward rathering that avoidance, instead of just chasing symptoms (Cacciatore, 2011; Cacciatore & Flint, 2012).
ATTEND is a mindfulness based (decolonial) bereavement care model that I teach to providers twice a year at Selah Carefarm. The framework asks caregivers to safely bring Attunement, Trust, Touch, Egalitarianism, Nuance, and Death and grief education to encounters with the bereaved, treating grief as something to be attended rather than fixed or corrected or surveilled. Here's information on the training (30 CEUs). We also ask providers to do their own deep, emotional shadow work.
The model does not chase a cutoff score or a set number of months. It trains the clinician's presence, wisdom, and active compassion instead of the client's symptoms. In our view, the grieving client isn't the problem: Our grief avoidant and intolerant systems are.
We ask providers not to check boxes or follow protocol, not to watch the calendar to see if six months or one year has passed before deciding the pain was legitimate. We ask them to forego the chart notes asking whether grief had overstayed the societally acceptable time frame or intensity.
Instead, we ask that they become a person willing to sit inside someone else's devastation without flinching, and stay there as long as it necessary. Our model never asks what is wrong with the grief or the grievers. In our model, carers just stay and help.
We believe what really helps grievers is love, compassion, and refusing to leave, even when it feels scary.
Cacciatore, J. (2011). ATTEND: Toward a patient-centered model of psychosocial care. In C. Spong (Ed.), Stillbirth: Prediction, prevention, and management (pp. 203–228). Wiley Blackwell.
Cacciatore, J., & Flint, M. (2012). ATTEND: Toward a mindfulness-based bereavement care model. Death Studies, 36(1), 61–82.
Thieleman, K., Cacciatore, J., & Wonch Hill, P. (2014). Traumatic bereavement and mindfulness: A preliminary study of mental health outcomes using the ATTEND model. Clinical Social Work Journal, 42(3), 260–268.
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