Village Hotel Katong
YOUR SPEAKER
Ian Poulier is a trained counsellor with extensive experience in counselling youth and young adults. As a counsellor, Ian believes it is important to understand the client in the context of their value systems. Applying a person-centred approach undergirded by a social emotional learning framework (SEL), Ian is continually challenged to bring the clients he engages with to be empowered to reach their fullest potential. He is currently working at The SEL Network LLP and a well-known facilitator and speaker at workshops, conferences, seminars, in both educational and corporate settings. He hosted TEENTALK on 93.8LIVE and mentored focus groups with different schools. He is also actively called upon to give advice and opinions by the journalists of the New Paper. Ian has been a professional Counsellor serving both local and international schools and in a VWO. He has coauthored a book, HeartWarmers, a collection of prose and poetry.
COURSE BRIEF
Grief Therapy has become vital in today’s world. With its relentless pace and rate of change, the world says, without emotion, “Hurry up, you gotta catch up. Otherwise, you’ll be left behind”. So we push ourselves along life’s highways, always going faster. But we don’t know where we are going. And then we experience a slow down - the loss of someone close, a mother, aunt, brother, or friend. It could also be the end of a relationship or the parting of ways that foretells we have ended a phase in life and need to move on. And COVID-19 too. They all spell GRIEF - the absence of someone we love, the loss of job and predictability and then we bury it in ourselves. Handling grief is critical. We need to know how to handle it ourselves before we can help others as counsellors or therapists. What are some valuable theories? How do we approach grief, given that we will all experience it? What is there to learn? Am I open to change? Who should I turn to? Will I allow myself to feel the pain, or do I just numb it?