Loss and Grief: Family and Community Resources by Professor Maurizio Andolfi

This session is open to the public.

Sypnosis of Workshop:

In fifty years of therapeutic experience with families from all over the world, Maurizio Andolfi found that the pain that people suffer for the loss of significant members of their family can be very intense, long lasting and sometimes devastating. The loss of a spouse, regardless of age and circumstances, (cancer, heart attack, accident, suicide) produces a long-lasting grief, difficult to overcome for the survival partner as well as for the family as a whole. The loss of a child is even more difficult to cope with and probably it will be very hard or impossible to recover from such a dramatic "unnatural" event. In this presentation, Maurizio Andolfi will outline a multigenerational and multicultural method of understanding and dealing with this issue. He will illustrate the importance of grieving together, of self-disclosure as well as sharing pain in the family context. Religious and spiritual believes, family and community traditions and rituals can be very supportive in dealing with the pain and the sorrow of a loss. Family therapy and/or supporting self-help group can be a very intense and productive experience in moving from a paralyzing individual grief to a shared deep mourning and the circulation of pain can become after some time a family strength.

Our Speaker: Honorary Consultant Professor Maurizio Andolfi 

Maurizio Andolfi, is a family therapist who initially trained as a child psychiatrist. He lived in New York City in the early 70’s where he worked extensively in the South Bronx, and later in South Philadelphia with disadvantaged families. During his time in the USA, Andolfi studied with Salvador Minuchin, Jay Haley, as well as Carl Whitaker in the following years. Dr. Andolfi is Professor of Psychology at La Sapienza (University of Rome), Director of the Accademia di Psicoterapia Familiare in Rome Italy, and Editor-in-Chief of the Italian family therapy journal: Terapia Familiare. In 1999 he was the winner of an American Association of Marital & Family Therapy award for Special Contribution to Marital and Family Therapy. He's the Co-Founder of the European Family Therapy Association and the past-President of the Italian Family Therapy Society. He contributes to the Andolfi Family Therapy Centre by providing training and supervision.'

Closing date for registration: 23 September 2024