Back in the early 90’s I ran an organisation that advised on everything to do with death and dying, including sitting vigil with the dying, so I’m relaxed around the subject. In general though, people feel that death is something that they can’t speak about, perhaps because it will bring death to them or make people think they’re weird, so I was slightly anxious about how many people would turn up to the first Portobello Death Café, especially since it was being recorded by Radio 4.

I need not have worried. In all, there were about 20 of us, about half of whom looked under 25, and the conversation flowed beautifully. Not surprisingly, older people had developed their philosophy around death, it seemed to hold no fear for them, and they were keen to stress how important it was to live as full a life as possible. Younger people seemed more focused on the deaths they had experienced and how the process of dying, death and bereavement seemed too haphazard, that there were no rituals to guide them or anyone else through something that didn’t just happen for one day but resonated throughout their lives.

(A few days later Selfies At Funerals appeared on tumblr, which confirmed those experiences. I don’t think it’s the end of civilisation but a demonstration that many young people are now totally unprepared to deal with death and are attempting to find their own way based on how they handle other events. They now know that death is not like other events.)

Right at the beginning of the evening we wrote about what death meant for us on Post It notes and stuck them on the wall. Throughout the evening the notes fell off like autumn leaves. No one missed the symbolism. The reporter put his recording equipment away and joined us as an equal, we all listened to each other carefully and respectfully. The age differences in this group were striking and whilst no overt teaching happened it was noticeable and somewhat moving that younger people listened carefully to what older people had to say and vice versa.

Then we fell upon the exquisite Red Velvet cake that Hummingbird Bakery had so kindly donated and I had to remind people to go home so that the venue could close on time. The only thing I wasn’t happy with was the part of the Radio 4 report in which I say “Portobello Death Café” as if I’ve gone mad. I was reading the cake and was fairly overwhelmed by Hummingbirds generosity and the sheer prettiness of the cake. You can hear my shame as well as the wise and useful things that people said at the café here at around 25mins in.

I’m hopeful that tonight’s Death Café will be as successful and that the one on the 13th November that will be filmed by Yahoo will come across well. People do want to talk about death, to explore their fears and philosophy and develop their knowledge by listening to other people’s experience. If you’re around Portobello, join us.

Lighthouse West London
111-117 Lancaster RoadW11 1QT

http://www.londontown.com/TransportInformation/Attraction/London_Lighthouse/bded/

A lot of what I’ll be doing in the coming months will be ritual based.

About half of my clients describe feeling detached or distracted, they can’t get on with life, often they’re irritable, sometimes they’re listless. Life has lost meaning: what’s the point of going to work/ struggling with exams/ anything?

Any number of clients who’ve experienced bereavement describe this kind of melancholia, and it seems that a part of them has followed the person they love into the world of the dead. While there may not be an actual ‘Land of the Dead’ it’s a useful idea to play with: you’ve followed the person you loved but since this is a place for the dead not the living, you start to become listless, hopeless, indecisive and get uncomfortable feelings – rage, fear, hatred – that you can’t shake off. You’re not dead but you’re not really alive. To return to life you have to say goodbye to the person you most want to be with.

Every other culture has ritualised life changes, not primarily to control a community but because humans are inherently ritualistic. Menarche, first sexual experiences, becoming pregnant, giving birth, becoming a parent, first day at school and so on towards becoming a post-menopausal woman or a properly mature man; great age, moving closer to your Ancestors rather than your grandchildren; last illness and death. And finally being honoured by the living as an Ancestor yourself.

For a decade I facilitated these kinds of events in a formal setting for large groups of people and saw how powerful and transformative they can be in a very different way from therapy. Therapy relies heavily on words and on exploring how you’re feeling. Ritual speaks to instinct – you move from your intellect to your guts and heart quickly and safely. So powerful is ritual that just watching one can change the way you view the world and your place in it. When you don’t know where that might be, beginning to find out can be very restorative.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be drawing up a list of events, some seasonal, some weekly, some monthly. Let me know what you’d like to be involved in, from Red Tents to shrouding our dead.

Petrūska Clarkson has been on my mind all this week. “One of the most significant figures in the history of Gestalt therapy in England," therapist, lecturer, academic author, creatrix of the Systemic Integrative model, Clarkson killed herself in the summer of 2006. You can read more about her incredible list of achievements here. 

 I never met Petruska Clarkson but along with colleagues noted her death and then never spoke about it again. Her death will have had a much greater impact on her personal friends, colleagues, students and of course the many clients with whom she worked over the years but somehow I missed any obituary other than a letter in Therapy Today. A personal and heartfelt forum for people who wanted to remember her is here.

As far as I know there has been no professional debate over what her death, particularly her death by suicide, might mean to psychotherapy. Having spent a day combing the internet either I’m searching in the wrong places or there has been no discussion.

This morning I was very sobered by the realisation that I’d forgotten her name and searched for her under ‘psychotherapy’ on Amazon where she emerged on page 6. Then I searched for the Physis Institute, the training organisation she founded (as well as being a founder member of Metanoia) and came across a good number of therapists who have called their practice Physis with no reference to Clarkson, but was unable to find anything about the Institute.

How can such an important person disappear so completely? Is this a partial clue?

“I insist that there be no funeral, cremation or memorial service of any kind held for me. Instead I wish sincerely that all those who have valued my work just continue to ‘help the people’ in the spirit of Physis as they are”.

Jason Mihalko, a US based therapist, has written about the impact of a client suicide:

"My patient who killed herself told me once that when she died she wanted no obituary, no service, no tomb stone--no marker of any sort that made mention of her life. She wanted there to be "no memory that my sad life ever existed on this planet." 

This is an endlessly complex matter and I hesitate to draw parallels between two people I’ve never met who had very different lives. But there is something profound about erasing oneself not just by suicide but also in the insistence that routine death rituals be put aside. Even people with no friends, family or money get their name mentioned by a priest as part of their paupers’ funeral, they’re not simply loaded into the cremator or fed into the earth. But Petruska Clarkson and the anonymous client  (and any number of other people who kill themselves) insist that just this be done for them.

Perhaps, just as we could not fulfil the needs of people in life who are adamant that this lack of fulfilment be brought to their death rituals, we may need to ignore their needs in death. Jason’s writing about his experience with one particular person has offered a great deal to his readership over a year, probably extending into many more years. I’m very wary about treading on the broken hearts of people who knew Petruska Clarkson or offering them any offence: speaking for myself I’m disturbed that her desire for erasure seems to have been taken all too seriously. In death, she has yet more to offer psychotherapy.

There’s a great deal more to be thought about here, but perhaps it’s good to end this entry with Jason’s wise words, words that echo Clarkson’s final wishes:

                                      “Treat people like they matter. 
                        It's the most important thing you will ever do.”