Alzheimer’s Disease & Dementia Care Training

Who and what might we encounter when a carer comes for counselling? In the final part of her myth-busting series about the value and diversity of counselling people with a dementia, Danuta Lipinska calls our attention to the unique experiences of clients who are caregiving, and explains why we must move away from the limiting language of ‘loved ones’.

Sex and intimacy have been described as the last taboo in dementia care. As counsellors seeking to engage with the whole person, we cannot afford to dismiss their potential place in our clients’ lives so easily. In the penultimate part of her myth-busting series about the value and diversity of counselling people with a dementia, Danuta Lipinska talks sex – taking in client disinhibition and therapist discomfort, legal and reproductive health contexts, and the challenges of internet dating when you may not be able to remember your way home.

Who is the 21st century client when it comes to therapy with people with a dementia? To coincide with World Alzheimer’s Month, Danuta Lipinska continues her myth-busting five-part series about the value and diversity of counselling people with a dementia. Today, she shares features of working with younger clients, from the poignancy of planning for the future, to the therapist’s encounter with her own vulnerability.

How might people with a dementia engage in meaningful therapeutic work? To coincide with World Alzheimer’s Month, Danuta Lipinska continues her myth-busting five-part series about the value and diversity of counselling people with a dementia. Today, she discusses communication, the Core Conditions, and Christine Bryden’s helpful metaphor of a tin of baked beans.

To mark World Alzheimer’s Month this September, Danuta Lipinska embarks on a five-part series about the value and diversity of counselling people with a dementia. Every Friday, she will be debunking a common myth about the condition as she shares insights and stories from her long career in dementia care. Today, she addresses the misconception that therapy isn’t ‘for’ people with a dementia.

What therapeutic challenges and opportunities arise when a client with dementia enters nursing or palliative care? In the concluding part of her blog series coinciding with Alzheimer’s Month, psychotherapist and author Dr Esther Ramsay-Jones discusses working through this latter stage in the trajectory of dementia.

How does grief counselling differ when the client has dementia? In the fourth part of her blog series coinciding with Alzheimer’s Month, psychotherapist and author Dr Esther Ramsay-Jones explores the experience of bereavement through the lens of dementia, including working with hallucinations, metaphor and felt-absence.

Powerful projections, loss of recognition, longstanding relationship dynamics: caring for a family member with dementia is a complex emotional task. In the third part of her blog series coinciding with Alzheimer’s Month, psychotherapist and author Dr Esther Ramsay-Jones looks at how psychotherapy can help carers understand their own feelings, and the communications of the person with dementia