Our February chapter meeting will feature Connie Zweig, Ph.D., a retired therapist, author and speaker. As a reminder, attendance is free but CEUs are only available for current chapter members.
Presentation
The Gifts of a Life Review for Your Lived and Unlived Life for Clients 50+
The traditional life review is a well-known tool for people 50+ who wish to recall memories, resolve conflicts, and find forgiveness. I describe this process as the ego's life review, the story that our clients consciously lived and tell themselves about their lives. But we know from psychology that the personal unconscious, or Shadow, carries its own stories, dreams, and fantasies. I will add the dimension of Shadow to bring a deeper perspective to this tool, so that clients can explore their unlived lives and unfulfilled aspirations. We will explore how to connect what was expressed in an individual life story with what was repressed and unlived. In this way, the unlived life moves into conscious awareness, and clients can reclaim some of what was sacrificed—lost dreams, talents, and opportunities for reconciliation and healing. This presentation is adapted from the bestselling book The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul.
Learning Objectives
1. Learn a practice for older adult clients, who tend to be neglected in clinical training and suffer ageism in society
2. Define the purpose of a traditional life review, its opportunities and limitations
3. Assist clients to identify a key pattern in their conscious life story
4. Learn to describe how to review a client’s unlived life.
5. Assist clients to identify a feeling, trait, talent, or dream that was buried in the Shadow.
6. Assist clients to identify one of those to explore more deeply now.
Presenter
Connie Zweig, Ph.D. is a retired therapist and coauthor of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow. Her award-winning book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends her work on the Shadow into midlife and beyond and explores aging as a spiritual practice. It won the 2022 Gold COVR Award, the 2022 Gold Nautilus Award, the 2021 American Book Fest Award, and the 2021 Best Indie Book Award for best inspirational non-fiction. Her book Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening will be released May 23, 2023. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for more than 50 years. She is a wife, stepmother, and grandmother. After all these roles, she's practicing the shift from role to soul.
