Over the course of three days from Tuesday, August 28 to Thursday, August 30, Grief Care Seminar was held at four locations in Ofunato City in Iwate Prefecture, namely, Sanriku Health and Welfare Center, Rias Hall, Akasaki Gyosen Center, and Matsusaki Furusato Center. Director Yoshiko Takagi of Sophia University Institute of Grief Care gave a lecture on how to deal with a sense of loss that people will go through in the post-disaster period.
After the lecture, Professor Kyoko Yokoyama in the Faculty of Human Sciences at Sophia University hosted question and answer session. This seminar was organized at the request of Ofunato City and this makes it the second seminar in a row following the previous one held in March this year. Altogether there were about 150 participants in this three-day seminar held at four different locations.
The lecture explained that it is perfectly all right to let yourself feel sorrow when it is there because there is nothing pathological about it. What is important is that local people themselves should find their own way to overcome their feelings of grief. But everyone needs a shoulder to cry on once in a while and that’s why we are here for.
The Institute is planning to hold Grief Care Seminar in Ofunato City again in March next year.
