A Creative Expressions of Loss Workshop

with Carla Fine and Dr. Michael Myers

Thursday, April 17, 2014, 7-9 pm

Admission Free, Reservation Required

The loss of a loved one to suicide can be an overwhelming occurrence in an individual’s life. Each person who experiences this type of loss grieves the death of their loved one in a very personal and unique manner that impacts their sense of self, relations with others and how they function within the world they live.

Since silence and stigma so often surround the topic of suicide, survivors frequently feel alone and isolated in coping with their loss. Frequently, they have little or no outlet to express their innermost thoughts and feelings about their confusion, guilt, anger and heartbreak as well as their hopes for the future, strivings for resiliency and search for healing.

The Writing A Path To Healing workshop addresses these issues and challenges in a positive and life-affirming manner providing participants with a creative outlet to process their feelings.

Carla Fine, a survivor of her husband’s suicide and the author of the book No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving the Suicide of a Loved One, and Dr. Michael F. Myers, professor of clinical psychiatry at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, combine their dual perspectives as survivor and mental health professional to offer creative and different ways to cope with the suicide of a loved one.

Co-authors of the book Touched by Suicide: Hope and Healing After Loss, Ms. Fine and Dr. Myers present first-person narratives and offer hands-on participation through the use of writing exercises, role-playing and creative dialogue interchanges to help survivors learn ways to express their feelings about suicide, healing and recovery to their family, friends, community, and of most importance, themselves.

To reserve your place for the Writing A Path To Healing workshop, send an email with your name, address and phone number to education@samaritansnyc.org

Sponsored by the Samaritans of New York in association with the NYS Office of Mental Health, Writing A Path To Healing, Thursday, April 17, 7-9 pm at the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, 281 Park Avenue South (at 22nd Street).

To download a flier for this workshop, click here.

Writing A Path To Healing, A Creative Expressions of Loss Workshop, with Carla Fine and Dr. Michael Myers is part of the Samaritans of New York’s Changing the Conversation/Beyond Surviving initiative which has as its primary goal the destigmatiziation of suicide loss and providing new outlets to those touched by suicide (as well as their family, friends, caregivers and health providers), including expanding the resources and tools available to them. To learn more, click here.

For more information on our Safe Place Program, click here.

To learn more about attending a Safe Place meeting, click here.

To download a Suicide Survivor Support Group Flier, click here.