IMAGINING PEOPLE WELL; OUR HUMAN POTENTIAL FOR
WELLBEING THROUGH THE END OF LIFE
Facilitated by: Ira Byock, MD
Thursday, November 30, 2023, 7:00 pm -9:00 pm ET
Price: $50.00
Within contemporary Western culture, assumptions about healthcare can confine our responses to people with serious, life-limiting conditions and their ability to live fully. Illness and dying cannot be fully encompassed by the prevailing problem-based medical model. Beyond symptoms and suffering, dying is a profound personal experience for every individual, as well as for his or her family. The recognition of personhood and the conceptual framework of human development offer ways for understanding the nature of suffering and the nature of opportunity associated with illness and dying. Developmental landmarks and taskwork suggested by this framework are illuminated by narratives of people living through these inherently difficult experiences.
A therapeutic approach to fostering human development through the end of life empowers clinicians to both alleviate suffering and guide people toward experiencing a sense of life completion and life closure. The best care for people with life-limiting illness is highly individualized, requiring competence, reliability, honesty, authenticity, and imagination. In accompanying people who are approaching life’s end, two therapeutic applications of imagination are distinguished. Receptive imagination enables clinicians to come into imaginative alignment with a patient. Generative imagination can be applied to identify opportunities that a patient feels are important or desirable but may not have realized were possible. Cultivating skillful use of therapeutic imagination enables us to fulfill the continuum of human caring and foster wellbeing through the end of life.
Facilitator
IRA BYOCK, MD, FAAHPM is a leading medical authority, author, and public advocate for improving care for people living with serious medical conditions. Dr. Byock is an active emeritus professor of medicine and community & family medicine at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. His research has contributed to conceptual frameworks for the lived experience of illness; measures for subjective quality of life; and counseling methods for life completion and wellbeing. He is founder of the Institute for Human Caring within the Providence health system. The Institute drives transformation in clinical systems and culture to make caring for whole persons the new normal. Byock has authored numerous articles in academic journals. His books include Dying Well, The Four Things That Matter Most, and The Best Care Possible. More information is available at IraByock.org