Compassionate Journeys: Lessons From My Work With the Dying - G. Jay Westbrook

In this amazing work, Westbrook generously shares with us the tools he has used and created over the last 30 years to bring comfort - physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual - to the dying, the families of the dying, and their professional and lay caregivers. Using the narrative style of Native Americans, Westbrook role-models his tools through a series of powerful, poignant, and moving stand-alone stories which illustrate precisely how to journey and navigate some of the most difficult End-of-Life situations, and to do so with Grace, equanimity, and deep partnership. Whether those dying are young or old, male or female, sober or loaded, sheltered or homeless, alone or surrounded, appreciative or combative, terrified or curious, rich or poor, or any other pairings you can imagine, this book engages the reader in ways to quickly establish trust and rapport and to then use humor, curiosity, reframing, and other tools to challenge, support, and co-journey with patients and families in ways that are transformative. The beauty of this book is that each brief chapter is a stand-alone teaching tool that can be used independently of the rest of the book. It can be used as a supplementary text for students, and in continuing education workshops for professionals. It can be used by the dying themselves and/or by their families. It can be read in quiet contemplation, or aloud as a stimulus for conversations of depth and weight and of hope and transformation. The power of this book and its tools lies in its role-modeling of how to simply use our humanity - our suffering, vulnerability, courage, humor, compassion, passion, curiosity, honor, love, and imperfection to create deep and lasting connection as we co-journey toward the End-of-Life.