Dr. Kenneth Doka, a licensed mental health counselor and preeminent expert on grief, discussed modern theories on loss and grief at Mount Saint Mary College on December 5.
Mount Saint Mary College hosted “No Boundaries: Complicated Deaths, Complicated Grief,” the second in a three-part conversation on grief and loss for healthcare professionals on Tuesday, December 5.
The talk was presented by the Kaplan Family Foundation in collaboration with Cornerstone Family Healthcare; Mount Saint Mary College’s Center on Aging and DIS-Ability Policy (CADP); Access: Supports for Living; and Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall.
After the welcoming and networking reception that began the event, Dr. Kenneth Doka, a licensed mental health counselor and preeminent expert in grief, shared his thoughts on modern grief theories.
He addressed risk factors for complicated grief such as traumatic and sudden losses, focusing on deaths due to suicide, addiction, and homicide; the current ways that complications of grief are recognized in the DSM-5-TR; and current perspectives on treatment.
Dr. Doka is a professor emeritus at the graduate school of The College of New Rochelle and Senior Vice-President for Grief Programs for the Hospice Foundation of America. He is one of the authors of Dying and Death: Life and Living. His other books include When We Die: Extraordinary Experiences at Life’s End, Living with Grief since COVID-19, Living with Grief: Before and After Death, and many more books, chapters, and scholarly articles.
Mount Social Science professors Lawrence Force and Jeffrey Kahana are co-directors of the Mount’s CADP. Established in 2006, CADP promotes an interdisciplinary perspective dedicated to excellence in research and scholarship in the fields of gerontology and disability studies.
Force has worked in the field of aging and disabilities for more than three decades as an administrator, clinician, and educator. Kahana, in addition to his work at the Mount, is a prolific author on subjects ranging from academics to social issues in the United States.